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BEYOND THE MISSISSIPPI: 



FROM THE GREAT RIVER TO THE GREAT OCEAN. 



LIFE AND ADVENTURE 



ox THE 

FEAIRIi'S, MOUNTAINS, AND PACIFIC COAST. 

WITH MORE TIIVN TAVO HUNDRED ILLL'STR.VTION'S, FROM PHOTOGRAPHS AXD ORIGINAL 

SKETCHKS. OF THE PRAIRIES, DESERTS. MOUNTAINS, RIVERS, MINES, 

CITIES. INDIANS, TRAPPERS, PIONEERS, AND GREAT NATURAL 

CURIOSITIES OF THE NEW STATES AND TERRITORIES. 

1857 — 1867. 



BY 

ALBERT J). RrCIIARDSON, 

AUTHOR OF ' FIELD, DUNGEON AND ESCAPE.' 



Clisncd hy jiil's-riiition only, and not for sale in the bookstores. Residents oT any Siaie in the Union de5;riny 
* co|.y should address the Pulilishcrs, and an agent will call upon them.) 



HARTFORD, COX\., 
AMERICAN PUBLISHING COMPANY. 

NATIONAL PUBLISHING COMPANY, 

I' U.AnKLnilA, PA., CINCINNATI, O., CHICAGO, ILL., ST. LOUIS, aiO., ATL^VNTA, C1.0. 

BLISS & COMPANY, NEWARK, N. J. 

n. JI. B.VSCIIOFT & CO., SAJJ FRANCISCO, CAL. 



r59f 



Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1867, 

By albert D. RICHARDSON, 

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the Southern District of New York. 









Printed by Wiley, Waterman &. Eaton, Hartford, t'onn. 
Klectrotypcd by R. H. Hobbs, Hartford, Coun. 



Behind the squaw's light hirch canoe. 

The steamer rocks and raves ; 
And city lots are staked for sale 

Ahove old Indian graves. 

I hear the tread of pioneers 

Of nations yet to he — 
The first low -wash of "waves where soon 

Shall roll a human sea. 

The rudiments of Empire here 

Are plastic yet and -warm. ; 
The chaos of a mighty ■world 

Is rounding into form. Whittibb. 

How canst thou walk in these streets, who hast trod the green turf cf the 

prairies ? 
How canst thou breathe io this air who hast hreathed the sweet air of the 

mountaina ? LoKaF£Li.ow. 



PREFATORY. 



Twenty years ago, half our continent was an unknown land, and the 
Rocky Mountains were our Pillars of Hercules. Five years hence, the 
Orient will be our next-door neighbor. We shall hold the world's granary, 
the world's treasury, the world's highway. But we shall have no Far 
West, no border, no Civilization, in line of battle, pressing back hostile 
savages, and conquering hostile Nature. 

I have sought to picture a fleeting phase of our national life ; not 
omitting its grotesque, lawless features ; not concealing my admiration for 
the adventurous pioneers who have founded great States from the Missis- 
sippi to the Pacific, and made a new geography for the American Union. 

It is discreditable to Americans — peculiarly so to those with means and 
leisure for traveling abroad — that they know little of this geography ; 
little of the greatness, richness and beauty of our national inheritance. 

In exhaustlessness and variety of resources, no other country on the 
globe equals ours beyond the Mississippi. In grand natural curiosities 
and wonders, all other countries combined fall far below it. 

Its mines, forests and prairies await the capitalist. Its dusky races, 
earth-monuments and ancient cities importune tne antiquarian. Its 
cataracts, canyons and crests woo the painter. Its mountains, minerals 
ind stupendous vegetable productions challenge the naturalist. Its air 



11 PREFATORY. 



invites the invalid, healing the system -wounded by ruder climates. Its 
society welcomes the immigrant, offering high interest upon his invest- 
ment of money, brains or skill ; and if need be, generous obliviousness of 
errors past — a clean page to begin anew the record of his life. 

The themes are fruitful. The Pacific Railroad hastens toward comple- 
tion. We seem on the threshold of a destiny higher and better than any 
nation has yet fulfilled. And the great West is to rule us. 

The field is very large. In crossing it here and there, I have only lin- 
gered at some noteworthy points. Future writers will study and depict 
it, State by State, more minutely and more worthily. 

New York, May, 1867. 



ILLUSTRATIONS, 



AUTISTS' NAMES IN SMALL CAPITALS ; ENGRAVERS' IN ITALICS. 

Page. 

1 Map of the rcgiou between the Mississippi and the Pacific. (Two pages.) 

Drawn on wood by Tudor Horton ; engraved by Fay & Cox 

2 Illuminated Title page. Thomas Nast. J. P. Davis & Speer 

:} The Gray Goose Quill. A. C. Warren. Faij & Cox 17 

i A Snagged Steamer. A. R. Waud. Davis & Speer. 21 

5 The Grade in Kansas City. A. R. WAun. Davis & Speer 26 

G Lawrence Kansas, in 1857. Thomas Hogan. Davis & Speer 35 

7 Waukarusa. George G. White. Davis & Speer 37 

S Mud Fort. Hogan. Davi'i & Speer 38 

9 Capture of Colonel Titus. White. K Orr & Company 40 

1 Portrait of James H. Lane. W. Waud. Davis & Speer 45 

1 1 A Prohibitory Law. White. On- 52 

12 City of New Babylon on Paper. Warren. Davis & Sjieer 59 

13 City of New Babj^lon in Fact. White. Davis & Speer 60 

1 4 Moving Accident by Flood and Field. Hogan. Davis & Speer 62 

15 'You can't hang me but once.' White. Orr 69 

16 Law and Order Men. Benjamin Day. Danis & Speer 72 

17 Indians Traveling. J. C. Beard. J. II. Richardson 74 

18 Family Encampment. J. C. Beard. Orr 78 

19 Governor Robinson's Trial for Treason. H. L. Stephens. Richardson 83 

20 A Fire in the Rear. Stephens. Davis & Speer 85 

21 A Comfortable Slumber. Day. Davis <fc SjJeer 90 

22 A Night in the Cabin of Four Miles. (Full page.) Nast. Davis & 

Speer. Face page 91 

23 Indian Mode of Burial. Granville Perkins. Davis & Speer 97 

24 Voting in Kickapoo. Frank Beard. Davis & Speer 101 

25 ' A Scene Like This.' Sol. Ettnge, Jr. Davis & Speer 107 

26 Old Kaintuck. Stephens. Davis & Speer 110 

27 ' About Full Here!' F. Beard. Davis & Speer 112 

28 Navig-ation of the Kansas River. John R. Chapin. Orr 115 

29 The Marais des Cygnes Massacre. (Full page.) Chapin. Richardson. 

Face page 117 

30 The Executive Supporting the Judiciary. Chapin. Orr 122 

31 Portrait of James Montgomerj'. W Waud. Davis ifc Speer 125 

32 A Peace Convention at Fort Scott, Kansas. (Full page.) F. Beauu. Davis tfc 

SjKer. Face page 128 

33 Returned Pike's-Peakers. F. Beard. Orr 137 



iv ILLUSTRATIONS. 

PAor 

34 A Morning Caller. F. Beard. Davis & Speer 138 

35 A Habitable Dwelling. Miss Emma De Ryke. Orr. 138 

36 A House Twelve by Fourteen. Miss M. H. Vanderveer. Fay & Cox 1-iO 

37 A Bona fide Residence. Miss Lizzie B. Humphrey. Orr 141 

38 End of tlie Bogus Laws. Mit-s M. Jakvis. Fay & Cox 149 

39 What's in a name ? A. R. Waud. Davis & Speer 15G 

40 An Abolition Euiissary. (Full page.) William J. Henxessy. Davis & 

Speer. Face page 154 

41 The Dead Brother. J. C. Beard. Davis & Speer 158 

42 ' Grocery.' A. R. Waud. Davis & Speer 1(12 

43 Horace Greeley's Manuscript. . Daci-i it Sptetv 164 

44 ' Busted, By Thunder 1' J. C. Beakd. Orr 166 

45 Narrow escape from the Buffaloes. (Full page.) J. C. Beard. Richardson. 

Face page 168 

46 Portrait of Horace Greeley. W. Waud. Davis & Speer 170 

47 A Change of Base. AVarrex. Davi-i & Speer 174 

48 Republican River. Perkins. Davis & Speer. 176 

49 Climbing into the Mountains. White. Orr 180 

50 Gregory Gold Diggings in Colorado, May, 1859. (Full page.) WnrxE. 

Orr 181 

51 Misplaced Conlideuce. Edwin Forbes. Davis & Speer 184 

52 Seven Views in Denver Colorado, 1859. (Full page.) Warren. Fay & Cox. 

Face page 186 

53 A Visit from Little Raven. A. R. Waud. Davis & Speer 191 

54 Burned to Death. H. Fenn. Davis & Speer 196 

55 Fl pjacks. Warren. Fay & Cox 200 

56 Going into the Mines. Stephens. Richardson 202 

57 Coming Out. Stephens. Richardson 203 

58 Missouri Iron Miners at Work. Chapin. Richardson 205 

;■ 9 Missouri Lead Miners above Ground. Thwaits. Davis & Speer 211 

60 Down tlio Shaft. F. A. Chapman. Davis & Speer 212 

61 Lead Miners under Ground. Chap.man. James L. Langridge 213 

62 The Church-going Bell. Stephens. Richardson 216 

63 Governor Walker's Residence, Indian Territory. William Waud. Davis & 

Speer. Face page 219 

64 A Counter-irritant. W. FiSK. Fay & Cox 220 

65 A Charmed Line. F. Beard. Davis tfc Speer 223 

66 A Mexican Cart. Miss Humphrey. Davis & Speer 227 

67 Comanche Greeting. F. E. Mullen. Davis & Speer 229 

68 A Morning Amusement. Forbes. Fay & Cox 231 

69 The Mirage. Fenx. Davis & Speer 233 

70 Indians Surprised and Defeated in Limpia Canyon. (Full page.) Warrex. 

Langridge 234 

71 The Spanish Bayonet. A. R. Waud. Davvi & Speer . 236 

72 Slieet Scenes in El Paso, old Mexico. W. Waud. Davis & Speer 240 

?3 A Mexican Fandango. Hogan. Davis & Speer 242 



ILLUSTRATIONS. V 

Page. 

74 ' Journey of the Dead Man.' Thwaits. Davis & Speer 24G 

75 A Mexican Grist-Mill. Miss J.\RVis. Davis & Speer 247 

76 A Mexican Farm-IIouse. Mis.s De Ryke. Fay & Cox. 250 

77 Gambling in Santa Fe. F. Beaud. Dacis & Spser 252 

78 Portrait of Kit Carson. W. "Waud. Davis & Speer 257 

79 Mexican Carriages. Chapin. lUchard'ion 2G0 

80 Hitcliing a Donkey. White. Orr 2G1 

81 Penitentes lasliing tlieniselves. Mullen. Davis & Speer 2G4 

82 Tlie Taos Pueblo. Fenx. Davis & Spetr 2C6 

83 My Rueful Mexican Host. WiiU'E. On: 273 

84 First view of Colorado Cilj'. White. Orr 276 

85 The Fontaine Qui Bouille. G. W. Crane. Orr 277 

8G The Author arrives in Denver. A. R. Waud. Davis & Speer 279 

87 John Brown. (Bradj^, Pliotographer.) A. R. Waud. Dar is & Speer 283 

88 A letter from Jolin Brown. Davis <£' Sjxii-r 285 

89 ' Do they Miss Me at Home ?' J. C. Beard. Richardaoa 288 

90 An Armed Neutrality. A. R. Waud. G. II. Hayes 291 

91 ' Our House ' in Denver. A. R. Waud. Davis & Speer 295 

92 Waiting fur Letters. F. Beard. Davis & Speer 298 

93 Indian Village in Denver, in 1860. White. Orr 300 

94 A Rocky Mountain Scene. From a Painting by Albert Bierstadt. (Full page.) 

Dixon. John Karst. Face page 302 

95 A Voluntary Retraction. A. R. Waud. Davis & Speer 306 

9G The Arastra. J. C. Beard. Iticliardson 3'i7 

97 Pike's Peak, from Forty Miles Northeast. Perkins. Davis & Speer 310 

98 Scene in the Monument Region. White. Orr. 311 

99 Gateway to Garden of the Gods. Miss Humphrey. Davis & Speer 312 

1 00 Climbing Pike's Peak. R. M. Shurtleff. Davis & Speer 314 

101 Under the Shelving Rock. Whil-e. Orr 317 

102 On the Summit. White. Orr 321 

103 ' Lincoln is Elected !' J. C. Beard. Richardson 325 

104 Light Artillery. Hogan. Davis & Speer 328 

105 A Picture of Whoa ! Forbes. Davis & Speer. 329 

106 Denver Architecture in 1867. W. Waud. Fay & Cox 334 

107 An Honest Miner. Hogan. Davis & Speer 336 

108 Indian Attack at North Platte Crossing. White. Orr 339 

109 An Outside Passenger. F. H. Sgiiell. Fay & Cox 341 

110 Snow-balUng ui June. J. Becker. Fay & Cox 344 

111 Emigration Canyon. (S. W. Y. Schimonsky, U. P.R.E.) Hogan. Z)am(fc<?i)eer. 345 

112 Great Salt Lake City, Utah, 1867. (Full page.) (Scliimonsky.) Chapin. 

Richardson 347 

113 Brighara Preaching to his Congregation. White. Orr 343 

114 Portrait of Brigham Young. W. Waud. Davis & Speer 352 

115 Lion House and Bee-Hive House. E. Bonwelu Davis & Speer 354 

1 1 6 'Why, I am your Wife !' Miss Mary A. Hai.lock, Davis & Spec?: 357 

117 The Great Salt Lake. (Schimonsky, ) Schell, Davis & Speer 360 



VI ILLUSTEATIONS. 

Page. 

118 An Early Mormon Coin. Davis & Speer = . . . • 364 

119 Egan Canyon and first Quartz Mill. (Scliinionsky) "White. 0;t. 3G8 

120 Virginia Nevada, and Mount Davidson. Boxwell. Davis & Speer. ...... 372 

12 1 The Crashed Timbers. Day. Davis & Speer 375 

122 On the Ladder. A. R. "Waud. Davis & Sjjeer ,.., 377 

123 Portrait of Louis McLane. A. R. AVaud. Davis & Speer 381 

124 Montgomery Street, San Francisco, July 4, 1865. Schell. Davis & Spear. 383 

125 Down the Sierra Nevadas by Stage-coach, in 1865. (Full page.) "Warrex. 

Langridrje 384 

126 A Gh-oup of Celestials. W. Waud. Davis & Speer 383 

127 liydrauUc Mining. Schelu Davis & Speer 391 

1:.'8 Mount Shasta. (Painted by F-. A. Butman.) Fexn. Davis & Speer 395 

129 Portland, Oregon, July 4, 1865. Boxwell. Davis & Speer 400 

130 Sheridan's tirsi Battle Ground, Columbia lliver. Pericixs. Langridrje 402 

131 A Midnight Reception to Speaker Colfax. A. R. Waud. Davis & Speer. . . 404 

132 Portrait of Albert Bierstadt. A. R. Waud. Davis & Speer 410 

133 Mount Rainier from Puget Sound. (Butman.) Warrex. Orr 413 

134 ' Lightning,' hu Indian Belle. A. R. AVaud. Langridye 417 

135 Government Street, Victoria Vancouver Island. W. Waud. Davis & Speer. 419 

136 Going into Yosemite Valley. A. R. Waud. Davis & Speer 421 

137 Diagram of Yo.^emite Valley. Hussey. Davis & Speer 423 

138 El Capitan. (Watkins, Photographer, San Francisco.) Perkixs. Langridge. 424 

139 Yosemite Fall— liighest in the World. (Watkins.) Warrex. Orr 425 

140 Vernal Fall and Round Rainbow. (Watkins.) Fexx. Langridye 428 

141 Bed and Board. Day. Davis & Speer , . . 43'i 

142 Riding through a Tree-Trunk. Hogax. Fay & Cox . 432 

143 The Grizzly Giant — 34 feet in diameter. Fexn. Davis & Speer 434 

144 Invitation to Chinese Dinner. Davis dh Speer 436 

145 Chinese Dinner in San Francisco. A. R. Waud. Fay & Cox 438 

146 Schuyler Colfax. (Win Shew, Photog., S. F.) A. R. Waud. Davis & Speer. Ul 

147 Portrait of Governor Bross. W. Waud. Davis <& Speer 4,3 

148 Portrait of Samuel Bowles. W. Waud. Davis & Speer 444 

149 'You Get!' A. R. Waud. Da.vis & Speer 445 

150 ' You Bet !' A. R. Waud. Davis & Speer. . . :V 446 

151 San Francisco from the Bay in 1847. ' Annals of San Francisco.' 448 

152 San Francisco in 1849. 'Annals of San Francisco.' 450 

153 Interior of Mission Church. ' Annals of San Francisco.' 452 

154 California Fruits and Vegetables. (Full page.) (Photographed by Bradley 

& Rulofson, San Francisco.) Hogan. Davis & Speer. Face page 453 

155 California Cactus. Miss De Ryke. Fay & Cox 456 

156 An Early California Coin. HORTOX. Fay tfc Cox 458 

157 Portrait of Leland Stanford. A. R. Waud. Davis & Speer 462 

158 Chinamen building Pacific Railroad, Sierraa A. R. Waud. G. H. Hayss. . 464 

1 59 Summit Cross'ng of Sierra Nevadas. A. R. Waud. Orr 405 

160 Rcrlection in Donner Lake. Hogan. Davis ifc (Speer 467 

161 The Donner Party in 1846. Day. Davis & Speer , 469 



ILLUSTRATIONS. Vll 



PAGB. 



162 Portrait of ' the Salt Lake Poetess.' "W. "Waud. Davis & Speer 470 

163 A Section of Big Canyon, Colorado River. A. G. Warren. Faij & Cox 472 

164 A View in BigCanyon of Colorado. Warren. Orr 473 

165 Six "Wives. Miss Humphrey. Davis & Speer 476 

166 A Prolific Country. Miss Jarvis. Fay & Cox 478 

167 The IIurdy-Gurdy House, Virginia Montana. (Full page.) H. "W. Herrick. 

Davis cfe Speer Face page 480 

168 Virginia City Montana. W. Waud. Davis & Speer 481 

169 Two-thousand-dollar Nugget. Miss Hallock. Davis & Speer 483 

170 A Man of Nerve. A. R. Waud. Orr 485 

171 A State of Suspense. A. R. Waud. Davis & Speer 487 

172 ' Speciments, Mass'r 1' Miss Hallock. Fay & Cox 488 

173 Great Falls of Missouri River. Schell. Davis & Speer 491 

174 Robbery of the Montana Coach. A. R. Waud. Karst 493 

175 Utah Indian Prisoners. J. C. Beard. Langridge 495 

176 Shoshonee, or Snake River, Cataract, Idaho. Warren. Orr 498 

177 Evidences of Civilization. Warren. Fay & Cox 501 

178 Interior of a Quartz Mill. Warren. Fay & Cox 502 

179 Ruby City, Owyhee, Idaho. A. R. Waud. Fay & Cox 505 

180 Examining the Ledges, War Eagle Mountain. Warren. Davis & Speer. . 508 

181 Fort Baker and Poorman Mine. Warren. Fay & Cox 509 

182 Surveying in Humboldt Pass. (Schimonsky.) Becker. Fay & Cox 511 

183 The Noble Red Man. A. R. Waud. Davis & Speer 5.. 

184 ' Heavy on One Wheel.' A. R. Walt). Davis & Speer 514 

185 Motmt Hood, Oregon. (Butman.) White. Orr. 515 

186 Flathead Indians. Miss Hallock. Fay & Cox 516 

187 Madrona Tree, Healdsburg California. Hogan. Davis & Speer 519 

188 Along the Ilog-back. Warren. Orr 522 

189 Diagram of Devil's Canyon. Warren. Fay & Cox 524 

190 Witches' Caldron, California Geysers. Warren. Fay & Cox 525 

191 Sea-Lions, San Francisco Harbor. Warren. Fay & Cox 529 

192 Tlie Golden Gate. Outlet of San Francisco Bay. (Watkins) Warren. 0?r. 531 

193 A School of Porpoises. Schell. Davis & Speer 534 

194 On the Isthmus, between Panama and Aspinwall. White. Fay & Cox 540 

195 Transferring the Specie at Aspinwall. E. Jump. Fay & Cox 543 

196' Only a Headache.' A. R. Waud. Davis & Speer 545 

197 Delaware Street, Leavenworth, 1867. Bonwell. Fay & Cox 550 

198 Among the Grasshoppers. Warren. Fay & Cox 553 

199 Lawrence Kansas, after the Quantrell Raid. A. R. Waud. Orr 557 

200 A Painted Darkey. Warren. Fay & Cox 559 

201 A Part of Omaha in 1867. Shurtleff. Fay & Cox 563 

202 Portrait of George Francis Train. W. Waud. Davis & Speer 566 

203 Building the Pacific Railroad in Nebraska. (Full Page.) A. R. Waud. 

Langridge. Face page 567 

204 Portrait of Thomas C. Durant. A. R. Waud. Davis tfc Speer 568 

205 Bear Hunting Sixty years ago. Warren. Fay & Cox 570 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER I. 

PAca 

"Westward and "Westward. American "Wines of the "West. The Great Muddy 
River. Scenes along the Missouii. Terrors of Missouri Navigation. A Story 
of Steamboat Racing. Stopping to '"Wood Up.' Oration by a Steamboat 
Gambler. All Varieties of Passengers. Arrival in Kansas City. Encounter- 
ing an Old Acquaintance. Border Ruffians iu Kansas, 17 

CHAPTER II. 

A Glance at "Wyandotte, Kansas. How Frontier Cities are Begun. A Romantic 
Indian Legend. A City among the Rocks. On the Rolling Prairies. Travel- 
ers along the Road. A Bit of Tankee Ingenuity. How Lawrence was Founded. 
And how it was Named. A Scene of Surpassing Beauty, 29 

CHAPTER III. 

A "War Reminiscence. Juries and Councils of "War. Origin of the Kansas 
Troubles. Resistance to the Bogus Laws. Two Characteristics of the Struggle. 
Free State Convention at Topeka. Lane's Power as an Orator. His Physical 
Endurance. His Speech in the Convention. Other Prominent Speakers. 
Reception of a Bogus Assessor. A Collection on First Principles. History 
repeating itself ' Casting out the Vile Demon,' , . . 39 

CHAPTER IV. 

First Visit to Leavenworth. A Journey on Foot. A Night with a Kentuc'fcy 
Squatter. The First Landing at Sumner. Atchison, Doniphan and Geary 
City. A Mania for Speculation. Difference between Fact and Fancy. A Real 
Estate Reaction. Rivalry of American Cities. An Eucroaching Element. 
Vagaries of the Missouri, 53 

CHAPTER V. 

Deadly Affray at the Polls. A Kansas Temple of Justice. A Murder for Money. 
A Mob Administering Justice. ' The Man with the Rope.' An Exciting Night 
Scene, Mormons Escaping to Kansas. The Land Sale at Osawkee. Border 
Ruffian Courts of Justice. A Quasi Declaration of War. Treason to be Put 
Down. Fallacy of Human Testimony. Governor Extinguished by Ridicule, . 64 

CHAPTER VI. 

Wild Fruits of the Prairies. An Emigrant Family in Camp. Rain Increasing 
with Civilization. A Shrewd Speculator in Lumber. "Within Prison "V\''alls. 



X CONTENTS. 

Page. 

Last Treason Trial in Kansas. Traveling to a Convention. Siege of Hickory 
Point. A Declaration by Buchanan. The Ballot or the Rifle. Rupture in the 
Democratic Party. Fifteen Whisky Punches, 77 

CHAPTER VII. 

Night Rides on the Prairies. Seeking Shelter among the Indians. A Night 
■with a Delaware Family. Origin of Indian Appellations. The Delaware 
Baptist Mission. Another Night's Lodging. Soraetiiiug about the Shawnees. 
Pottawatomie Funeral Rites. Origin of some Kansas Names. A Little Le- 
gendary Lore, 89 

CHAPTER VIII. 

Governor Denver makes his Debut. And has a Spirited Reception. "Wonderful 
Election Returns. To Vote or not to Vote. A Kansas Search-warrant. His- 
tory of the Minneola Scheme. ' Mightier than the Sword.' General Lane re- 
ceives his Friends. A Speech Nipped in the Bud. Governors plenty as Black- 
berries, 99 

CHAPTER IX. 

An Imaginary City. 'What are j'our Politics?' Freaks of Pohtical Highway- 
men. Not much Room left. An Excitement at Lawrence. Jenkins killed by 
General Lane. An Adventurous Cat-fish. Tlie Result of a Mis-step. Brave 
Father and Brave Son. A Most Inhuman Massacre. Le Marais du Cygne, ... 109 

CHAPTER X. 

A Party of Peace-makers. Before a Comfortable Fire. A Night at Osawattomie. 
Both Sides of the Question A Simple, Touching Story. Tlie Great Guerrilla 
Chieftain. One of his Devoted Adherents. ' Catching a Tartar ' Illustrated. 
A Moment of Excitement. Uniting to Keep the Peace. An Address by 
Montgomery, 120 

CHAPTER XI. 

Feminine Smokers of Tobacco. Fever and Ague Experiences. Perplexing 
Usages of Words. Mysterious Slang Phrases Interpreted. Pearls and Return- 
ing Gold Seekers. Colonel Gilpin's Early Predictions. Rattlesnakes as Bed- 
fellows. Mysteries of Pre-empting Lands. Forms of ' Duplicates ' and Patents. 
' Oaths are Words.' Borrowing a Child. An Ingenious Runaway Husband. 
A Clever Stratagem Spoiled. Fertility of the Hemp Region. Republican ver- 
sus Black Republican, 131 

CHAPTER XII. 

A Bit of Legislative Fun. Cost of Kissing a Chamber-maid. Easy Divorce in 
New States. Prisoners brought to Lawrence. An Unfortunate Hamilton. A 
Hard Country for Governors. Kidnapping of John Doy. His Rescue by John 



CONTENTS. XI 

Pace. 

Brown. Kansas Tapped by the Railway. The Luxuries of Modem Travel. 

A Little Trip to Kansas, 147 

CHAPTER XIII. 

Great Stampede for the Mines. The Sufferings along the Route. 'Concord 
"Wagon ' or Stage Coach. St. Mary's Catholic Mission. Horace Greeley Taking 
a Tour. A Limited Stock of Groceries. A Model Letter of Introduction. A 
Specimen of Editorial Penmanship. Among the Antelopes and Buffaloes. A 
Jovial Prairie Micawber. Facts about the Buffalo. A Narrow Escape from 
Death, 157 

CHAPTER XIV. 

Horace Greeley's Wide-spread Fame. Half a Million of Buff"aloes. The Curious 
Little Prairie-dog. Health and Strength of the Savage. Overturn of the Coach. 
A Night in a Cheyenne Village. Republican River under Ground. First View 
of Pike's Peak. Inspiring Presence of the Mountains. Denver City in its 
Infancy, 169 

CHAPTER XV. 

Starting for the Gregory Diggings. Our Weary and Winding Way, In the Heart 
of the Mountains. First Reliable Report of the Mines. First Mass Meeting at 
Pike's Peak. Freaks of our Eccentric Mules. Our Most Extraordinary Land- 
lord. ' Our Best Society ' in Denver. A Finished Specimen of a Gambler. An 
Unfailing Supply of Victims. The Turns of Fortune's Wheel. Almost one of 
Cooper's Heroes. A Visit from the Arapahoe Chief. A Conversation with Lit- 
tle Ravea, 179 

CHAPTER XVI. 

Little Raven as a Devotee. Indian Signals — Peace or Hostility. Expressive 
Features and Gestures. Ho, for the Mountains again! Death from the Moun- 
tain Fires. Evening Scenes among the Miners. The Gregory Diggings on 
Sunday. Intellectual, Argumentative Miners. Predictions of Gold and Agri- 
culture. A Shrewd California Emigrant. Beauty of our Indian Corn, 193 

CHAPTER XVII. 

The Great Missouri Iron Moiintains. Quarrying out the Iron Ore. Twenty-seven 
Hundred, Fahrenheit. Warsaw's Last Champions— and Soap. Lynching in 
Springfield Missouri. Effect of the War upon Mis.souri. Conversations with 
the Settlers. The Great Neo.sho Lead Region. Subterranean Mining Scenes. 
Mode of Reducing Lead Ore. Villages in Southwestern Missouri, 204 

CHAPTER XVIII. 

Life at Fort Smith Arkansas. Cotton Picking in Louisiana. The Tale of an Ink- 
stand. Experiences in a Sick Chamber. Entering the Indian Territory. 
Among the Cherokees and Choctaws. Curious Hereditary Complexions. 



Xll CONTENTS. 

Pack. 

Novel Boarding School Freaks. Crinoline among Indian "Women. The Chicka- 
saw.s lose their laws, 215 

CHAPTER XIX. 

News of Broderiek's Death. Frequency of Homicides in Texas. The Quaint 
Mexican Cart. Stopped by the Colorado River. The Fierce, Untamed Co- 
manches. Signal Code among the Savages. A Plucky Little Texan Woman. 
On tlie Great Staked Plain. A Girl Stolen by Comanches. A Fatal Fondness 
for Pictures, 225 

CHAPTER XX. 

Pr.^aeliing Easier than Practice. Tlie Colonel retires Disabled. First Line across 
tlie Continent. ' Out "West ' on its Travels. Peon Labor in New Mexico. A 
Kcntuckian in Court. Street Pictures in Mexican Towns. A Native Meg 
Merrilies. An Aristocratic Castilian Gatliering. Sund;.y Worship in the Ca- 
thedral 235 

CHAPTER XXI. 

From El Paso to Santa Fe. Adventures witli the Apaches. Consumption of Red 
Peppers. Passing througli Albuquerque. Arrival in Santa Fe. Highest Town 
in the Union. An Experience at Gambling. Curiosities and Horrid Trophies. 
Families of "White Indians. Fascination of Border Life, 245 

CHAPTER XXII. 

A Stray Prir.ter and Journalist. A Ride with Kit Carson. His Hair-breadth 
'Scapes Hospitality of the Mexican. The Victim of a Biographer. All about 
Mexican Donkeys. Tlio Rel)ellion of 1847. Curious Religious Customs of Na- 
tives. Mexican Peonage versus Slavery. Among tlie Pueblo Indians. Their 
Superstitions and Traditions. Strange Old Aztec Ruins. Geological Changes 
in the Country-, 256 

CHAPTER XXIII. 

From Taos to Denver, Colorado. A Polyglot Landlord. Before the Sutler's Fire. 
Out-door Mountain Lodgings. Meeting a Plucky Pedestrian. An Unpleasant 
Sleeping Companion. A Herd of Spotted Antelopes. Offerings to an Invisible 
Deity. Another Old Friend. Climate and Pulmonary Complaints. A Report 
of John Brown. End of Summer Journeyings, ''2Q'J 

CHAPTER XXIV. 

A Night with a Squatter. Killed in the Darkness. Reminiscences of Old John 
Brown. Yankees, Missnurians and 'Cricks.' A Letter from John Brown. 
One of Jolin Brown's Followers. An Extinguishing Retort. Along the Emi- 
grant R(.ad. IluMiors of Plains Travel. Our Pioneers and Self-government. 
An Illustration of Lynch Law. Gordon's Capture, Trial and Death. "V\''onder- 
ful Tenacity of Life, 2S1 



CONTENTS. XUl 



CHAPTER XXV. 

PACC 

A Summer Day in Denver. Best House in tlie Neighborhood. A Breakfast 
Party of Rovers. Newspapers, Churches, Hotels, Stores. Mint, Express-office 
and Coach. Curious Characters from Everywhere. A Stroll down Blake 
Street An Editor and a Count. A Grand Mountain Panorama, 294 

CHAPTER XXVI. 

Little Eaven Loses a Treasure. A Dentist Practices Strategy. A Hard Countrjk 
for Editors. A Night at Aiwllo Theater. Tisit to Gregory Diggings. Pun- 
ishing a Precocious Youth. In the Great Soutli Park. A Memorable Summer 
Excursion. The Interesting Monument Region. Music in Underground 
Chambers, 303 

CHAPTER XXVII. 

Starting up the Mountains. Scenes of Picturesque Beauty. jSTature's Terrible 
Convulsions. Dismal and Dreary Situation. Clouds Breaking once more. 
Fears of Fever and Delirium. All Vegetation left behind. On the Crest al 
last. An Indescribably Grand View. Four Territories— Four Great Rivers. 
Provisions Alarmingly Scarce. Effects of the Five-days' Trip. Good Treat- 
ment for Invalids. The Trans-continental Pony Express, 313 

CHAPTER XXVIII. 

Starting Westward again. "Indian Murders and Depredations. Tornado near 
Fort Kearney. Press Dispatches on the Wing. One Dollar for a Newspaper. 
Grasshoppers Miraculoush' Destroyed. Ranch Eggs versus States Eggs. Les- 
son of Mountain Scenery. Gregory Diggings at Six Years Old. A Curious 
Claim Controversy. Growth and Resources of Colorado, 327 

CHAPTER XXIX. 

Virginia Dale — Lover's Leap. Smelling the Battle afar off. Indians a Little too 
Near. "Wagon Three Inches too Wide. Chruch Butte and Fort Bridger. An 
Old Trapper's Story. Three Mormon Wives— all Sisters. First View of Salt 
Lake Valley. Speeches and Responses — Hot Springs. Scenery of Wonderful 
Beauty. Eight Days among the Mormons. Miracles of the Telegraph. Frank 
Discussion with Brigham Y^'oung 338 

CHAPTER XXX. 

The City of the Future. All the Jews are Gentiles. Personal Description of 
Brigham. An Hour in Brigham's School. Thirty Wives and Sixty Children. 
Great Salt Lake and the Dead Sea. Sunday Service of the Mormons. Brig- 
Lam's Great Theater. Dwellers among the Mountain-tops. Sagacity of the 
Mormon Leaders. Practical Workings of Polygamy. One Wife too many. 
Assassinations in Salt Lake City. Early Trials of the Pioneers. How the 

Problem will be Solved, 351 

2 



Xiv CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER XXXI. 

Pass. 

From Salt Lake City Westward. Eight Miles in Thirty Minutes. Irrigating the 
Sandy Deserts. Hardships and Perils of P^xplorers. Features of Austin Ne- 
vada. First View of Sierra Nevadas. A City set upon a Hill. Excitements 
in Mining Stocks. Richest Silver Mine ever Found. Curious Inventions of Mi- 
ners. Four Hundred Feet under Ground. Ores Sent Abroad for Reduction. 
Five Hundred Millions per Annum, 3G6 

CHAPTER XXXII. 

Carson City and Carson Valley. Earliest OfiBcers of Nevada. Lake Tahoe, on 
Sierra Nevadas. Seven Thousand Feet above Sea-level. A Legend of Stage 
Driving. Thrilling Ride down the Sierras. Reaching the Locomotive again. 
Sacramento — Arrival in San Francisco. A Startling Catalogue of Events. 
Delightful Days in PlacerviUe. The Rare Charm of California. Chinamen on 
the Pacific Coast. Among the Hydraulic Miners. The Wonderful Power of 
Water 379 

CHAPTER XXXIII. 

Wann Climate of Pacific Coast. Scene of a California Story. The Widow of John 
Brown. Spelling ' Yreka Bakery ' Backward. Reminiscences of General Grant. 
Noteworthy Points on the Road. Plentifulness of Babies. Portland Street and 
River Scenes. Excursion up the Columbia. Lincoln Grant and Sheridan. 
Curious Dalles of the Columbia. A Bit of Oratorical Fun. Northern Pacific 
Railroad wanted. A Couple of ' Little Stories,' 393 

CHAPTER XXXIV. 

A Frontier Supreme Court. Oregon Pioneers Govern Themselves. Terrible Re- 
venge on the Savages. The Rich Resources gf Oregon. A Little more Oregon 
Cider. Forests of Washington Territory. A Strange Forest Village. The 
America of the Future. Beautiful Scenery of Puget Sound Under the British 
Flag. Features of Vancouver Island. American Rhetoric among the Britons. 
Fate of the Brother Jonathan, 407 

CHAPTER XXXV. 

Discovery of Yosemite Valley. View from Inspiration Point. Riding down the 
Zigzags. Hutehings and his Household. Trees and Walls of the Valley. 
Yosemite Fall— Highest in the World. ElCapitan; Mount King; Mount Col- 
fax. Bridal Vail; Vernal; Mirror Lake. The Wonderful Round Rainbow. 
Grandest Scenery on the Globe. Eight Thousand Feet above Sea-level. Visit- 
ing the Mariposa Big Trees. Forty Feet in Diameter. A Forest Ingomar and 
Parthenia. Grizzly Giant — Thirty-four Feet in Diameter. A Grand National 
Summer Resort, 420 



CONTENTS. XV 



CHAPTER XXXVI. 

Pace. 

Invited to Celestial Hospitalities. Sitting down to the Banquet. More than 
Three Hundred Dishes. Extracts from the Bill-of-fare. 'Wives won't Come.' 
Mr. Colfax and his Journey. My Friends Homeward Bound. California Poli- 
tics as a Study. Features of California Society. American Wit and Humor. 
A String of California Stories, 436 

CHAPTER XXXVII. 

The "Raw Winds of San Francisco. A Climate Stimulating like Wine. Fires and 
Earthquakes Unavailing. Prejudice against the Chine.«e. Mission Mills; 
Church; Yosemite Views. California Quartz-mining and Farming. Grain, 
Vegetables and Fruit Trees. Mammoth Productions of California. Oranges, 
Vineyards and Wines. An Immense Private Enterprise. The San Francisco 
Newspapers. A Bit of Historical Record. Half an Hour in the Mint. The 
Great PaciHc Railway, 447 

CHAPTER XXXVIII. 

Excursion on the Pacific Railroad. Twelve Thousand Chinese Laborers. Horri- 
ble Fate of the Donner Party. Engulfed by a Snow-slide. Establishing the 
Railway Route. Empty Travelers Fearless of Robbers. Fellow Passengers on 
the Desert. Once more in Salt Lake City. A ' Destroying Angel ' on Journal- 
ists. The Salt Lake Poetess. A Few of her Early Stanzas. Pah Ranagat Sil- 
ver Region, Colorado River and Big Canyon. The Novelties of Arizona, ... . 461 

CHAPTER XXXIX. 

From Salt Lake to Montana. On Waters of tlie Pacific. Hanged upon his own 
Gallows. Virginia Montana, and Alder Gulch. Scenes during the Flu.sh 
Times. An Hour in the Hurdy-gurdy. Standing Astride the Missouri. A 
Visit to Helena. Curious Painting of Fort Union. Pitched from a Stage 
Coach. Costly Newspaper Publishing. Quaint Indian Translations. Vigi- 
lantes Administering Justice. Quartz on the Brnin. A Great Future for 
Montana, 475 

CHAPTER XL. 

Lewis and Clark's Great Expedition. Explorers given up as Dead. Build them 
a Monument! 'Help yourself to the Mustard.' Unerring Instinct of Beavers. 
Every Man's House his Castle. A most Wonderful Mirage. Visiting Great 
Shoshonee Fall. Enormous Portals of Lava. Fascination of tlie Deep Gulf 
A Bloodless Idaho War. Unattractive State of Society. The Chinook Jargon. 
Scenes in a Great Quartz Mill, 490 

CHAPTER XLI. 

A Visit to Owyhee. Ruby City — War Eagle Mountain. Grinding Quartz versus 
Stamping. 'Italian Summers and Syrian Winters.' Into the Oro Fino Mine. 



XVI CONTENTS. 

Fah. 
The Great Poorman War. Much Capital Recklessly Squandered. Agricultural 
Capacitj' of Idaho. Robberies of Mail Coach. Among the Blue Mountains. A 
Night at Meacham's. Down the Beautiful Columbia. Lewis and Clark's Old 
Campmg-ground. Our Quartz Regions Full of Interest, 504 

CHAPTER XLII. 

The Telegraph always a Miracle. Ingenious Newspaperial Strategy. A Story of 
the Rebellion. Healdsburg and Foss-station. The Roar of the Geysers. Plu- 
ton River and Devil's Canyon. Grotto; Devil's Wash-bowl and Kitchen. 
Witches' Caldron; Crater; Vent Holes. The Wonders of California, 518 

CHAPTER XLIII. 

Steamer-day ' in San Francisco. Finest Vessels in the World. Captains' Wives 
not Admitted. Gull, Albatross and Porpoise. A Lazy and Luxurious Exist- 
ence. Six Hours in Acapulco. Earthquakes — A Droll War. No Vehicles 
nor Wagon Roads. Wonderful Beauty of the Nights. Arrival at Panama, . . 527 

CHAPTER XLIV. 

Native Complexions and Costumes. The Old Cathedral at Panama. A Black 
Proverbial Philosopher. Lignumvitaj Sleepers ; Cement Poles. Richest Vege- 
tation in the World. Along the Panama Railway. Twelve Hours in Aspin- 
wall. Discomforts on the ' Rolling Deep ' Experiences of the Passengers. 
^, ight in a Heavy Gale. End of Eight Months' Wanderings, . 537 

CHAPTER XLV. 

A Ride through Illinois. Atchison; Sumner; Leavenworth. Railway Ride to 
Topeka. A Political Convention again. Curious Retributive Justice. Omniv- 
orous Grasshoppers. Farming by Machinery. Women Voting on School Mat- 
ters. Lawrence; the Old Landmarks. Paola; the Border Counties. One ■" 
Cent per Year. Kansas as a Farming State. Beautify the Dwellings. Peace 
Ilath her Victories, 548 

CHAPTER XLVI. 

From Saint Joseph to Omaha. A Beautiful Town-site. Street Scenes in Omaha, 
An Original American. Out on the Pacific Railroad. Two and-a-half Miles 
per Day. The Three Kansas Forks. Twenty-five Thousand Men Employed. 
An Experience of Lewis and Clark. A Trip across Iowa. Around the World 
by Railway, 562 



BEYOND THE IISSISSIPPI. 




Un the 28tli of May, 
1857, I left St. Louis, whirling westward by the Pacific Kail- 
road of Missouri. It was begun in 1850 when there were but 
seven thousand miles of railway on the American continent. 
Now there are thirty-seven thousand miles. 

Slavery had greatly retarded this richest State of our whole 
Union. Illinois, building the longest railway in the world and 
reaching every hamlet with the locomotive, was far in advance of 
her. Chicago, stretching out iron arms in every direction, was 
fast gaining upon St. Louis. But Missouri already felt the free 
atmosphere of her great metropolis and the surrounding States. 
She had plunged heavily in debt to inaugurate a generous railway 
system, guaranteeing bonds of the companies to the amount of 
many millions of dollars. Several of these roads, in defoult of 
payment, were afterward forfeited to the Commonwealth, and sold 



18 AMERICAN WINES OF THE WEST. [1857. 

to new corporations at a heavy loss. But tliey developed tlie un- 
equaled resources of Missouri, and were the entering wedge — tbe 
first deadly blow at her relic of barbarism. 

We looked up at tall fantastic turrets crowning higli lime- 
stone walls, and down into deep valleys of luxuriant oaks, elms, 
maples, black- walnuts, sycamores, and cottonwoods, with net- 
work of parasitic vines. In August the landscape is black with 
enormous clusters of elder-berries from which skillful housewives 
make a pleasant, domestic wine. Now, among dead, ghostly, 
standing trunks of girdled trees, thriving corn and tobacco con- 
cealed the rich, jet-black soil. Autumn corn-stalks often rise high 
above the log farm-houses, and completely hide them, — 

'A mighty waize, but not without a plan.' 

At the few very modern villages, we heard native depot- 
masters report ' Eight smart o' sickness down the crick,' and little 
darkies warn each other, ' Get out of the way, the train has done 
started.' 

Hermann, a German settlement upon our route, was then pro- 
ducing more native wine than any other point west of Ohio, 
Now, California far exceeds it. Wherever the sharp bluffs of 
Missouri slope to the southward, they are specially adapted to 
vine-growing ; and the State is believed to embrace ten million 
acres upon which the grape will thrive — double the area of all the 
vineyards of France. The capacity of the Ohio valley also, is 
practically illimitable. Already the mellow lines of Longfellow 
are not merely the poet's fancy, but literal truth, — 

' For richest and best 

Is the wine of the West, * 

That grows by the Beautiful River.' 

The next generation will see the choicest wines of the world 
made in California, Ohio and Missouri. They will be exported 
to every foreign land. Americans will give them to their children, 
and use them freely in their households as our farmers do milk, 
or the Germans their Ehenish wines. Men will have stimulants. 
No nation, civilized or savage ever existed without them. And 



1857.] THE GREAT MUDDY RIVER. 19 

wherever our native wines are introduced they diminish the con- 
sumption of whisky and brandy, and promote health and temper- 
ance. 'They who drink beer think beer,' but Catawba and Mus- 
catel neither muddle the brain nor fire the passions. 

Our train dashed up and down heavy grades, darted around 
curves and shot through tunnels, to the tune of Festus: 

'By Chaos I tliis is gallant sport — 
A league at every breath ; 
Methinks if I ever have to die, 
I'll ride this rate to death.' 

The locomotive seemed rolling straight to the Pacific; but the 
fullness of time was not yet come, and it made a weary halt at 
Jefferson, one hundred and twenty-five miles west of the Missis- 
sippi. In the crowded intervening years, the iron horse has taken 
man}^ a long leap, over prairie, across desert, and through canyon, 
until now he snuffs the salt air of the western ocean. 

At Jefferson — dreariest and dismalest of State capitals — I took 
steamer up 'the great yellow river of the Massorites,' as La Ilon- 
tan named it two centuries ago. Later travelers called it 'the 
Messourie.' It is still dense as then with the crumbling prairies 
which it cuts away to deposit along the lower Mississippi, or add 
to the new land at its mouth, rising from the gulf, as rose the pri- 
meval earth from the face of the deep. 

John Randolph exaggerated in declaring that the Ohio was 
frozen over one half the year and dry the other half. But Benton 
told almost the ex,act truth when he described the Missouri as a 
little too thick to swim in, and not quite thick enough to walk 
on. By daylight the broad current is unpoetic and repulsive — 
a stream of liquid brick-dust or flowing mud, studded with 
dead tree-trunks, broken by bars and islands of drear}'- sand, and 
inclosed by crumbling shores of naked soil. Its water will 
deposit a sediment an eighth of an inch thick upon the bottom of 
a tumbler in five minutes. Though at fii'st unpalatable and medi- 
cinal, one soon finds it a pleasant, healthful beverage. I have 
seen errant Missourians so partial to it, as to urge that the pure 
waters of the Rocky ^Mountains were unfit to drink because of 
their clearness ! 



-20 SCENES ALONG THE MISSOURI. [1857. 

One of our eastern passengers, pouring out half a pitcher-full for 
ablution, was utterly disgusted with its color in the white por- 
celain basin. 

' Here waiter,' he exclaimed, ' bring me clean water ; somebody 
has washed in this.' 

Its aspect quite justifies the Indian appellation of 'strong water,' 
and possibly accounts for the tendency of whites to the manner 
born, to weaken it with whisky. A novice fancies bathing in it 
must sadly soil any one not very dirty to begin with; but it 
proves soft and cleansing. 

Only in the day's full glare is the stream revolting. Morning 
twilight, while the east is silvery, late evening when the west is 
blood-red, and moonlit night, all mellow and idealize it. Then 
every twig and leaf is penciled sharply upon clear sky, the turbid 
waters sheeny and sprinkled with stars, and the environing woods 
dreamy and tender. Often they are exquisitely tinted ; and the 
night pictures of the despised Missouri, rival in beauty those of 
the familiar Hudson, and the far, stupendous Columbia. 

The lofty ranges of Montana hem the chafing torrent into a 
narrow chasm, but through these prairies of Kansas, Nebraska, 
and Missouri, its valley is often ten miles wide. In its long-ago 
stalwart youth, the great river filled this gorge with a mighty 
flood. Now, old and shrunken, it zigzags across from hill to hill. 
Never having a high bank upon both sides at once, it will be 
difficult to bridge for future railways. 

We found most of the banks low, wooded, miasmatic bottom- 
lands, dotted by a very few log-houses. Nature^has been little dis- 
turbed by man. It is one vast wilderness with a tree blazed here 
and there. The soil consists of sand deposits, those of a single year 
often a foot thick. It has no cdhesiveness, and is cut by the water 
like sawdust. The shifting channel sometimes moves forty or 
fifty yards in a single week. Hundreds of huge trees lately 
undermined, and still in full leaf, lie in the water, clinging to the 
shore by one or two claw -like roots. When these give way, the 
trees float until the roots grasp and firmly imbed themselves in 
the sandy bottom. Then the sharp stems, often entirely under 
water, form snags, the special horror of Missouri navigation. 
Always pointing down stream, they are dangerous only to vessels 



1857.] 



TERRORS OF MISSOURI NAVIGATION. 



'A 



moving against the current. Thousands rise above the surface, 
frequently so thick that a boat can hardly find room for passing. 
Floating logs are caught upon these upright posts; the water 
pours over them in little cascades till they collect waifs and form 
a great tangled heap of drift-wood to be swept away by tlie first 
freshet. The fatal snags are hidden under water. "When a 
steamer at full headway strikes one it often pierces her to the vitals. 
A few weeks after our passage, the Tropic, a first-class boat, 
moving ten miles an hour, ran upon one of these death-dealing 
spears. It penetrated her hull, pierced through the deck, })antry, 
and two state-rooms, and came out at the hurricai,e roof, breaking 




A SN'AGGED STEAMER. 



the main pipe, deluging the cabin with hot steam, killing an engi- 
neer and leaving the wretched ship impaled like a fly upon a 
needle. No sagacity nor experience is proof against these unseen 
w^eapons, and one does not wonder at the wrinkled faces and pre- 
mature gray hairs of pilots and captains. Even boats ap])ear to 
share their terror. I could distinctly feel our steamer thrill with 
disgust when she ran upon a sand-bar, and shudder with horror at 
every snag grating against her keel. 

Navigating the Missouri, at low water, is like putting a steamer 
upon dry land, and sending a boy ahead with a sprinkling pot. 



22 A STOKY OF STEAMBOAT RACING. [1857. 

Our boat rubbed and scraped upon sand-bars, and they stopped us 
abruptly a dozen times a day. From the extreme bow on the 
lower deck a man sounds with line and plummet. Every minute 
or two, he reports in drawling sing-song, ' Four and a b-a-l-f/ 
'F-i-v-e feet,' 'Quarter less t-w-a-i-n,' (a quarter fathom less than 
two fathoms,) ' M-a-r-k twain,' ' N-o bottom,' until the pilot rings 
his bell and the danger is past. 

Compared with ocean vessels, these river steamers seem light 
and fragile as pasteboard, and if they take fire, they burn like tin- 
der. But many run fifteen miles an hour with the current, carry 
enormous loads, and often pay for themselves in a single year. 
Still their hey-day is over. The conquering railway robs 
them of nearly all passengers, and much freight. Gone forever 
the era of universal racing, with all its attendant excitements; — 
its pet steamers, high wagers, and fierce rivalry I 

A good share of American human nature was exhibited by 
the old lady, who took passage, for the first time, on a steamboat, 
with several barrels of lard from her Kentucky plantation for the 
New Orleans market. Familiar with horrible legends of explo- 
sion, collision, midnight conflagration, she was tremblingly 
alive to the dangers of her position. She had extorted a solemn 
promise from the captain that there should be no racing, which re- 
lieved her pressing anxiety. But on the second day, a rival boat 
came in sight, and kept gaining upon them. Their speed was 
increased, but still, nearer and nearer came the rival until side by 
side the noble steamers wrestled for victor3^ Quivering in every 
tense nerve and strong muscle with the life and will and power 
that man had given them, they shot madly down the stream. 

The passengers crowded the deck. Every pound of steam was 
put on. The old lady's nerves began to thrill with the general 
excitement. Life was sweet and lard precious, but what was death 
to being beaten ? 

'Captain,' she implored, ^canH we go faster?' 

' Not by burning wood,' was the reply ; ' we might with oil.' 

At that moment the prow of the other steamer darted a few feet 
ahead. This was too much. 

' Captain,' she shrieked, ' if you let that boat pass us, I'll never 
travel with you again. Knock open my lard barrels and fire up 
with themP 



1857.] STOPPING TO 'WOOD UP.' 23 

Upon this strange old river a boat stops wherever she likes, ex- 
temporizing a wharf by running out a staging to the bank for 
landing passengers and freight. After dark, we tied up to a tree 
in front of a wood-pile, where a shingle, nailed to a stake, was la- 
belled 'Fore Dollars a cord.' By glaring torches we saw the 
well-drilled negro deck-hands follow each other briskly up the 
staging, out among the huge trees, and come back in endless pro- 
cession, bending under enormous burdens of cottonwood. Almost 
as soon as our clerk could pay the owner, who mysteriously ap- 
peared from some hidden log-house in the forest, four cords were 
loaded, and we moved on. These dwellers in the wilderness, 
whose whole income is derived from selling wood to steamers, 
abound along the shores. 

Thus we journey up against the strong current, which drains a 
continent, forming a great natural highwa}", for four thousand 
miles, fi'oin the gates of the Rocky Mountains to the southern 
gulf. This is the annual migration. Every spring hundreds of 
thousands of our countrymen go westward, as inevitably as wild 
geese fl}' south on the approach of winter. We are indeed 'A 
bivouac rather than a nation, a grand army moving from Atlantic 
to Pacific, and pitching tents by the way.' It is not from acci- 
dent, or American restlessness, but Law fixed, inexorable as that 
compelling water to its level, or the magnet to its pole. 

In all ages and countries, how uniform the course of civiliza- 
tion toward the setting sun — that Mecca which needs the memory 
of no prophet to draw thither its living pilgrims — that 'land be- 
yond tlie river,' where Greek poet and American Indian, alike 
place the abode of their dead ! From the dim confines of Egypt 
and China, has the spirit of Progress, like the fabled one of Jew- 
ish legend doomed to no respite from his wanderings, marched 
on — by Greece, Rome, and Western Europe, across the Atlantic, 
through Jamestown harbor, over Plymouth Rock — on, on, toward 
the serene Pacific. Ere long through the Golden Gate of San 
Francisco, it will go out by the islands of the sea to that dreamy 
Orient where it was born. And then — what? 

On our crowded steamer every state-room is filled, and nightly 
the cabin floor is covered with sleepers upon mattresses. One 
can not promenade without endangering some unfortunate slum- 



24 ORATION BY A STEAMBOAT GAMBLER, [1857. 

berer, and calling forth expostulations, or curses, according to his 
ruling temperament. Forward, near the clerk's office, is a convo- 
cation of restless passengers around a little table. Upon it a gam- 
bler with hang-dog face, wearing a white hat with broad band of 
black crape, has arrayed two or three gold and silver watches, 
with money, penknives, ear-rings, breast-pins, and other cheap 
articles, each in one of the little numbered squares of an oil cloth. 

' Gentlemen,' he begins, ' you can throw the dice for fifty cents. 
For every figure you turn up there is a corresponding figure on the 
cloth, and you draw whatever rests upon it. There are no blanks. 
You may get this superb gold chronometer watch worth one hun- 
dred and forty dollars, or this magnificent English lever, which 
cost fifty dollars at wholesale, or this elegant silver goblet, cheap 
at ten dollars. You are certain to get sotne article worth twice 
your money.' 

A backwoods Missouri boy in white wool hat and corduroys 
produces half a dollar, and with nervous hand throws the dice. 

'All light, sir — two, five, fourteen. Fourteen draws these 
splendid gold ear-rings, worth three dollars and a half,' (actual 
value about one dime.) 'Try again, sir? Very well; here 
is your change. Luck again. Eight wins you this ten-dollar 
bead purse. Once more? Wait a minute; tJiis gentleman's turn 
first. Sixteen. You have won that splendid enamel-cased ivory- 
handled bowie. You'll try another? Certainly. Tw-entj'-one. 
By Jove ! you have the silver goblet. At this rate you'll break 
me in two hours ; but I won't back out — not one of the backing- 
out kind. What will I give you for the knife and goblet? Five 
dollars. Take it, do you? Here's j^our money. Who will be 
the next lucky man ? Keep the game lively, gentlemen.' 

The gentlemen do keep it lively. That re-purchase was a 
master-stroke. It brings down the half dollars like rain, and the 
gambler reaps a rich harvest. The secret is, that the three or 
four really valuable articles are upon figures which the dice never 
exhibit, and on the others there is a profit of three or four hun- 
dred per cent. The victims are as profound philosophers as those 
who proposed to buy all the tickets in a lottery, and thus be sure 
of the prizes ! They have failed to learn the great principle of 
commerce, that goods do not sell for less than cost. 



1857.] ALL VARIETIES OF PASSENGERS. 25 

At the same moment the dim lights shine upon a serious group 
holding a prayer-meeting at the other end of the cabin, and we 
hear the faint, subdued tones of hymn, exhortation, and prayer. 
Was there a Missouri steamer pictured in the prophetic soul of 
old Daniel Defoe when he wrote, — 



'Wherever God erects a house of prayer, 
The devil aUvMys builds a cliapel there; 
And 'twill be found upon examination. 
The latter has tiie largest congregation ?' 



Our passengers exhibit life in every phase. Here are young 
men and young married couples from eastern and middle States, 
seeking fairer opportunities and broader fields of effort in the 
ample, generous West. Here is the youthful Missourian with 
slouched hat, whose red flannel shirt is decorated with black 
anchors and glaring scarlet braid ; the sallow, nervous merchant 
with his summer stock of goods ; the well-to-do planter, tall and 
portly, with large, brunette wife, and two or three white-eyed 
coal-headed young Topseys — all returning from trips to St. Louis. 
Mingling with them are the 3'oung missionary in solemn black, 
and white cravat ; the irrepressible agent of a new Kansas town 
proving incontestably by statistics and diagrams that his will 
become the largest city west of New York ; the eager-eyed specu- 
lator bound for the land sales, with wonderful stories of his uncle 
who became a millionaire from Chicago investments, or his wife's 
cousin who made forty thousand dollars in six months upon 
Michigan pine-lands ; the enthusiastic German whose blue eyes 
sparkle as they catch the gleam of a golden future, or grow tender 
in the subduing moonlight, as he talks of his boyhood's home on 
the Rhine. So our boat moves on, bearing its measure of hope 
and joy and sorrow — a little world, but holding in nice proportion 
all the elements of the great world without. Ruled by the same 
sweet love, and the same restless ambition — by memory whose 
tender sorrow no future can turn into gladness, and hope, the 
light of whose eager eyes no darkened past can quench. 

We reached Kansas City, Missouri, in two days from St. Louis, 
and thought it excellent time. Once afterward, in low water, J 



26 



ARRIVAL IN KANSAS CITY 



[1857. 



was nine daj^s making the journey. The cars now accomplish 
it in fourteen hours, 

Kansas City perching on a high bluff commanding a fine view 
of the river for miles below, was a very important point — in a 
neck-and-neck race with Leavenworth and St, Joseph for the rich 
prize of the great commercial metropolis of the far West. In 
front of the town the broad bouldered landing sloping down to 
the water's edge presented a confused picture of immense piles of 
freight, horse, ox, and mule teams receiving merchandise from the 
steamers, scores of immigrant wagons, and a busy crowd of 
whites, Indians, half-breeds, negroes and Mexicans, 

There were solid brick houses and low frame shanties along the 
levee, and scattered unfinished buildings on the hill above, where 
' the Grade ' was being cut fifteen or twenty feet deep, through 

abrupt bluffs. Carts and 
horses wallowed in the mud 
of these deep excavations; 
and the houses stood trem- 
bling on the verge as if in 
fear of tumbling over. 
Drinking saloons abounded, 
and every thing wore the 
accidental, transition look of 
new settlements. 

But there was much stir 
and vitality, and the popula- 
tion, numbering two thou- 
sand, had unbounded, un- 
questioning faith that here 
was the City of the Future. 
A mile and a half from the 
river building lots one hun- 
dred feet by fifty were selling 
at from three hundred to seven hundred dollars. Lots three blocks 
from the landing commanded one thousand dollars, and a single 
warehouse on the levee rented for four thousand dollars per 
annum. 

The proprietor of the local newspaper was an old editorial asso- 




'THE grade' in KANSAS CITY. 



1857.] ENCOUNTERING AN OLD ACQUAINTANCE. 27 

ciate of mine. Four years earlier we had been connected with 
the Cincinnati Daily Unionist. The Kansas-Nebraska Act was 
then pending in Congress. With strong anti-slavery convictions, 
my co-laborer wrote pungent editorials against it; and headed the 
daily telegrams recording its progress, 'Latest from Washington : 
The Nebraska Infemy.' Now, his paper was emphatically ' border 
ruffian.' 

He received me with cordiality, after the manner of the coun- 
try instantly inviting me into the nearest saloon and, What 
would I drink ? To my suggestion of lemonade, he replied with 
a glance at the rough crowd about us, 

' That will never do in this country. Say whisky.' 
Then we took a quiet evening stroll beside the strong, noiseless 
river, which shone and sparkled in the moonlight. He not only 
declared that denouncing the pro-slavery aggressions, would have 
ruined him pecuniarily ; but seemed at heart thoroughly in sympa- 
thy with the community where he had cast his fortunes. Upon 
the organization of Kansas and Nebraska, societies for organized 
emigration sprang up in the North. Under their auspices many 
settlers, going in a body, obtained passage at lower rates. In 
a few cases, the fare of needy emigrants was paid by these socie- 
ties. The South attempted similar movements, but with indiffer- 
ent success, only 'Buford's men' from Georgia, and one or two 
other bands going in large parties. In the North, after the 
troubles began, there was a rage for armed emigration. Even 
churches and Sunday schools, took up collections for it, and 
the Quakers of Pennsylvania and Indiana found their peace 
doctrines yielding to their anti-slavery sentiments, and contrib- 
uted money to buy Sharpe's rifles for emigrants. Whittier's lines, 
written at this period, were very expressive of northei'n sentiment: 

' We cross tlie prairie as of old 

The pilg:rims crossed the sea, 
To make the West as tliey the East 

The household of the free. 

We go to rear a wall of men 

On Freedom's southern line, 
And plant hoside the cotton-tree ^ 

The ru^'ged northern pine. 



28 BORDER RUFFIANS IN KANSAS. [1857. 

Upbearing like the ark of old 

The bible in our van, 
We go to test the truth of God, 

Against the fraud of man.' 

My friend thought the aid societies of New England war upon 
tiLe institution of Missouri, and full justification for the hordes 
which had poured into Kansas, overawed tbe ballot-box and taken 
possession of the Territorial legislature. I asked if there was any 
doubt about the border ruf&an incursions. 

' 0, no,' he replied, ' I have seen thousands of armed Missourians 
cross the Kansas river two miles from here to vote at an election, 
and return home the next day.' 

He could not comprehend that the New Englander — who came 
as an actual settler to spend his life, and establish a home for his 
children — had a right to vote, whether helped by an aid society 
or not: while the Missourian, crossing the border for a day to 
put in his ballot by force and then returning to his home in an- 
other State was a criminal invader, striking at the foundation of 
free government. 

I spoke of the wrong of slavery : of the fact that it was fight- 
ino- all the agencies of modern civilization which must inevi- 
tably conquer it sooner or later. He replied : 

'0 3'es; I thought so once: I was just as fanatical as you 
are. But I have learned better. It is a mere question of political 
economy. Kansas, like Missouri is adapted to hemp and tobacco, 
which can be raised only by slave labor. The negro is far better 
off here than in the so-called freedom of the North. These Mis- 
sourians, too, are in dead earnest ; they will fight and be killed 
to the last man, rather than let Kansas become a free State. 
And you know the whole South is behind them.' 

Months afterward, when as a citizen of Kansas, I tried to help 
in her struggle for freedom, my friend rebuked me with great 
bitterness. But time at last makes all things even : he learned 
his error, became an eloquent advocate of emancipation, and spring- 
ing to arms in our great civil war, shed his blood for freedom and 
the Union. Missouri, redeemed, regenerated, disenthralled, recog- 
nized his talents and services, and while I write he is one of her 
representatives in the Congress of the United States. 



1857.] A GLANCE AT WYANDOTTE, KANSAS. 29 



CHAPTER II. 

After a single night in Kansas City, a morning walk of two 
miles up the south bank of the Missouri, over the richest black 
soil, shaded by stately sycamores, brought me to the Kansas or 
Kaw River. 

'Kansas,' signifying 'smok}^,' is the name of a degraded and 
nearly extinct Indian tribe. Lewis, and Clark, and all other early 
explorers, spelled it as pronounced, with a ' z.' It was first flmiil- 
iarized to American ears by the bill of Senator Douglas, repealing 
the Missouri Compromise — that little fire which kmdlcd so vast a 
conflagration. Then many official documents and newspapers fol- 
lowed the early orthography, and to this day a few journals sj)ell 
it 'Kanzas;' but the later mode is irrevocably established. At 
its mouth the river is three or four hundred yards wide. Its 
waters would be called muddy, east of the Alleghanies ; but by 
contrast with the turbid Missouri they are pure and transparent. 
Crossing in a skiff I stood upon the soil of Kansas, already classic, 
and baptized in blood, a battle-ground of warring ideas. 

I landed on the tented field, not of sanguinary strife, but of the 
city of Wyandotte. This prophetic Babylon was four months 
old, with a population of four hundred. Its beautiful site on a 
gentle, symmetric eminence, overlooks low wooded bottom-lands 
of Missouri on the east, Kansas City on the south, and the Mis- 
souri river for miles below. A few pleasant white warehouses 
and residences, and unpainted plank shanties were erected. Many 
more were going up ; and meanwhile waiting settlers dwelt 
under heaven's canopy or in snowy tents. Everywhere busy 
workmen were plying ax, hammer, and saw ; and the voice of 
the artisan was heard in the land. The settlers were merry over 



80 HOW FRONTIER CITIES ARE BEGUN. [1857. 

the attempt of ' Governor Eobinson and a few other lunatics ' to 
found a new town called Quindaro nmong the rocks and hills 
three miles above. The spot they had selected was utterly 
impracticable; they might as well have sought to buikl a city 
upon the Natural Bridge of Virginia, or the Palisades of the Hud- 
son. This information was imparted to me with great zeal and 
emphasis immediately upon my arrival, and repeated at frequent 
intervals, during a stay of two hours. 

Wyandotte shares of ten building lots were selling at eighteen 
hundred dollars. In founding a city, a few speculators become cor- 
poratcd, by special act of the legislature, as a town company. 
Then, if the land is already open for preemption, they survey 
and stake out three hundred and twenty acres — the quantity 
which Government allows set apart for a town-site — at one dollar 
and a quarter per acre. But the large ideas of the West will never 
be satisfied with such a pent-up Utica. So they engage settlers each 
to preempt one of the adjacent quarter-sections, (one hundred and 
sixty acres.) The settler can only do this by swearing that it is 
for his homestead, for his own exclusive use and benefit ; that he 
has not contracted, directly nor indirectly, to sell any portion of 
it. The invariable alacrity with which he commits this bit of 
perjurj^, is a marvel to strangers not yet free from eastern preju- 
dices. When his title is perfected, he deeds his land to the cor- 
poration, and receives his money as per agreement. Thus the com- 
pany secures from five hundred to a thousand acres, cutting it into 
building lots usually twenty-five by one hundred and twenty-five 
feet. Ordinarily ten lots are embodied in a * share,' which runs in 
this form : 

NEW BABYLON COMPANY. 
No. 514. New Babylon, April 1, 1857. 

This is to certify that is tlie owner of ten lots, viz : — Lot C in Block 

19; 1 in Block 30 ; 20 in Block 45; 7 in Block G8; 23 in Block 104; 3 in Block 147; 
14 in Block 170; 24 in Block 189; 12 in Block 241: and 17 in Block 252, in the 
City of New Babylon, Territory of Kansas, as officially surveyed, platted and recorded. 

Tiios. MfGGiN'S, President. 
Joseph Snooks, Secretary. 



j Seal. \ 



(Transferable by assignment on the back of this certificate.) 



1857.] A ROMANTIC INDIAN LEGEND. 81 

If the town succeeds, the original proprietors grow rich. If it 
fails, having risked little, they lose little. The site I now visited 
was purchased directly from the Wyandottes, one of the three 
or four Indian tribes who own their lands in fee-simple. 

Strolling on up the river, over an excellent road, I was in a 
richly wooded region, dotted with neat log-houses and well tilled 
farms, inclosed by substantial Virginia fences six or seven feet 
high. This tract, six miles square, is the reservation of the Wy- 
andottes. Here the surviving members of that once dominating 
tribe have permanently settled. They sustain churches and free 
schools, speak Englit^h, intermarry with the whites, and embrace 
civilization more readily than any other branch of their race. 

Two hundred years ago, the great Wyandotte nation dwelt on 
the shore of Lake Erie. There is a legend of a fiir-famed beauty 
in the tribe, who attracted many lovers, but none could move her 
obdurate heart. At last a stalwart chief laid siege to her affec- 
tions. Scores of scalps hung from his belt, and he bore the scars 
of many a hard-fought battle. Though neither young nor fair, he 
had a face 

'Thatglow'd 
Celestial, rosy-red, love's proper hue.' 

Before this ardent woer the dusky beauty relented; but she 
would accept him only upon solemn promise to do a deed which 
she was to name, after he should assume the obligation. It was rash ; 
but red human nature is like white human nature, and when was 
lover known to hesitate ? He took the vow. Then she made her 
demand. He must bring her the scalp of a Seneca chief, his 
friend and the ally of his nation. Entreaties and remonstrances 
were in vain, her hate was stronger than her pity. 

It was hard, but the old brave had sworn by his great medicine, 
and, like young Melnotte, he kept his oath. He brought the 
coveted scalp to this modern Herodias ; but the wanton murder 
inaugurated a bloody war which outlasted the seige of Troy. It 
continued for more than thirty years, gi'eatly reduced the "Wyan- 
dottes, and almost exterminated the Senecas. 

Why are the banks of the Sandusky, less classic than the shores 
of the Hellespont? Why are Senecas and Wyandottes forgotten, 



32 A CITY AMONG THE ROCKS. [1857, 

and Greeks and Trojans immortal ? The war of the former was 
three times longer, greater, more romantic. But the Homer was 
wanting to sing its epic. 

'Vain was the chiefs, the sage's pride; 
They had no poet, and they died.' 

Three miles above Wyandotte, I reached Quindaro, also on the 
Indian reservation. It was in dense woods, among great ledges, 
sharp hills, and yawning ravines — the roughest site for a town 
which it hatli entered into the heart of man to conceive. But 
here was absolutely certain to spring up the St. Louis of the Mis- 
souri river. The propiietors proved this to me incontestably by 
maps and statistics; by geography that never blunders and figures 
which can not lie. 

Quindaro founded upon a rock would stand unmoved when the 
floods should come and the winds blow. The wildest lashings of 
the Missouri, could never disturb its rocky ^erenit3^ But Wyan- 
dotte was built upon the sand : its shore was constantly changing, 
and, as every body knew, the great bar in front made it impossi- 
ble to land a steamer except at very high water. It was mid- 
summer madness to build a town iliere. Lieutenant Governor 
Eoberts and the other founders knew this, and onl}- wanted to 
make money out of immigrants unacquainted with the vagaries of 
the great river. Quindaro would have five thousand people 
within two years ; and — as I was a newspaper correspondent on 
delightful terms of familiarity with the public ear, and as I could 
serve them by writing the truth, the simple uncolored truth — a 
few choice lots could be secured for me at veiy low figures ! 
They would double in value within three months. 

Shares were offering at one thousand dollars, and soon after a 
sinde lot changed hands for one thousand five hundred dollars. 

The New England founders were very much in earnest. They 
had built a three-story frame hotel, the largest in the Territor}-, and 
a steam saw-mill with an engine of one hundred and twenty horse 
power. Substantial edifices of stone and wood were rising. The 
main thoroughfire, Kansas avenue, at right-angles with the river, 
was being excavated into a formidable bluff, with the wild expec- 
tation of cutting through it. Ultimately, the work was abandoned 



1857.] ON THE ROLLING PRAIRIES. 33 

and the street stopped midway in the liill against a rock and a 
bank of gravel. 

'Quindaro,' was an intelligent Delaware Indian woman, wife of 
a white man, whom the town projectors had employed to pur- 
chase the land for them from the Wyandottes. She conducted 
the negotiation so skillfully, that her name was perpetuated in 
the new city. It signifies a bundle of sticks — strength in union. 

In this town, four months old, was printed a creditable weekly 
newspaper, called the Chin-do-ioan — (pilot, or leader.) Its pro- 
prietors were capable and hopeful : but after that experiment they 
retired from journalism. One left editing for agriculture, and is 
now a thriving Indiana farmer. The other exchanged types for 
theology, and is a prominent clergyman of Cincinnati. 

A few days later, I took the stage for Lawrence, thirty-five 
miles in the interior. The route was through the reservation of 
the Delawarcs, containing two hundred and fifty thousanii acres, 
with no white settlers except one Baptist missionary, the Rev. 
John G. Pratt. For fifteen miles we rode through dense hilly 
forests, with occasional Indian farms. Then we struck the rich 
billowy prairie — indeed a ' beautiful meadow,' as the Indian woi'd 
signifies, — 

' Stretching in airy undulations far away, 
As if tlie ocean in liis gentlest swell 
Stood still, with all his rounded billows 
Fixed and motionless forever.' 

Bryant describes with exactness the rolling prairie. It is like a 
swelling sea over which a magician's wand has stretched, trans- 
forming it instantly, and holding it in bondage evermore. 
Glancing over thousands of acres covered with tall grass, and 
dotted witli groves, it appears the perfect counterfeit of cultivated 
field and orchard. One can hardly persuade himself that he is 
not scouring a long-settled country, whose inhabitants have sud- 
denly disappeared, taking with them houses and barns, and 
leaving onlj- their rich pasture and hay-fields. Not a habitation 
is seen ; for the Kansas Indians build their log-houses only in the 
woods which here skirt the low creeks. 

Wagon roads, revealing the jet-black soil, intersect the deep 



34 TRAVELERS ALONG THE ROAD. [1857. 

green of graceful slopes, where waves tall prairie grass witli wild 
flowers of blue, purple, and yellow. Sometimes over hundreds of 
acres these blossoms predominate, making the earth blue or 
yellow instead of green. In spring bloom the flowers of modest, 
delicate hues ; those of deep, gorgeous color flame in late sum- 
mer and early autumn. Nature revels in beauty for beauty's 
sake alone. Before her simple children of the forest she sits in 
robes of state, outvying the purple and gold of Solomon. Slowly 
the myriad years come and go — upon her solitary places tender 
spring-time and glorious summer drop down their gifts from 
overflowing coffers, though only the steps of bounding deer, and 
the voices of singing birds break upon the lonely air. 

The sky is of wonderful clearness. Narrow belts and fringes 
of forest mark the winding streams. In the distance rise conical 
isolated mounds wrapt in the softest of veils — a dim and dreamy 
haze. Upon our beaten road are immigrants with their house- 
hold goods and household gods packed in long white covered ox 
wagons, teams hauling freight from the river, speculators work- 
ing their way upon refractory mules, half-breed girls with heavy 
eye-lashes and copper-brown cheeks, jogging steadily along upon 
Ijorseback, Indian boys mounted on black ponies, their hair deco- 
rated with feathers and their tattered garments streaming in the 
breeze as they dash by us, yelping 'How?' — the universal 'IIow- 
d'ye do ?' of their race, — and footmen with cane upon the shoulder 
and carpet sack suspended from it, who look up wearily and ask 
' How much further to Lawrence ?' 

We dined at a log-house on Wolf creek, kept by a ' civilized ' 
Delaware fiimily. In our presence the squaw thrust her hand 
into the boiler upon the stove, and with stout bony fingers took 
out the corned beef which was to serve for our repast. It was a 
trying spectacle ; but no worse than one may sometimes see when 
led by fatal curiosity into the kitchen of a first-class hotel, where 
the fingers of perspiring cooks intrude officiously in the places 
where forks ought to go. In real, as in mimic life, he who would 
enjoy the play must not peep behind the curtain. 

Our meal would not have tempted epicurean souls who hold a 
successful salad the highest triumph of human intellect ; but it 
was sauced with hunger, and eaten heartily. 



1857.] 



A BIT OF YANKEE INGENUITY, 



85 



We continued upon the rich prairie. Here the once powerful 
and warlike Delawares, dwindled to a few hundreds, after a long 
retreat before the fateful army of civilization had made their last 
stand, and were waiting certain extinction. 

"We crossed the old bed, now dry and grass-grown, where the 
Kansas river flowed within the memory of living Indians. A few 
miles further, after half an hour's ride through dense heavy timber, 
over a jet-black soil of incalculable richness, we reached its pres- 
ent channel. The Charon who ferried our coach over, had a rope 
stretched across the stream, connected b}' pulleys with auothc] 




A PART OF LAWRENCE, KANSAS, IN 1857. 

rope extending from stem to stern of his long flat-boat. By turn- 
ing the head of his craft in the right direction he forced the cur- 
rant to propel it to and fro — a bit of Yankee ingenuity which 
brought little work and many dollars. It was trustworthy as 
steam power, and cheap as air. It was like harnessing the forces 



36 HOW LAWRENCE WAS FOUNDED. [1857. 

of nature into a gig. Sneer not at its unknown inventor, unless 
thou too canst 'draw out leviathan with a hook, or his nose with 
a cord which thou lettest down.' 

"We landed in Lawrence, the pioneer settlement. One night in 
1849, when this was unknown Indian territory, a party of over- 
land emigrants for California chanced to camp near the Kansas 
river. One, Charles Kobiuson of Massachusetts, was deeply im- 
pressed with the beauty of the s})ot. The next morning the emi- 
grants pressed on. They made scores of camps thei'eafter, on 
prairie slopes, in green valleys, among mountain glens, and by sing- 
ing streams. They had the pleasure and peril, the sulTeriug and 
adventure of all that Early Migration — that modern ci'usade whose 
unwi'itten history matches every marvel recorded in literature, 
from the Arabian Nights to the Book of JVlartyrs. 

When the goal was reached, Eobinson took part in the most 
stirring scenes of California. Among other experiences he was 
shot in a Sacramento riot arising from a conflict about real estate 
titles. The ball passed through his body, entering the stomach 
and coming out at his back; but he seemed bullet-proof and 
soon recovered. Speculators had laid out a city, and held property 
at high figures. But it was upon Government land to which they 
liad no perfected title. So other settlers 'squatted' upon the lots, 
built houses, and claimed ownership; hence the Sacramento war. 
The courts sustained the speculators, and Robinson was imprisoned 
as a ringleader in the riots. But the squatters, who were largely 
in the majority, elected him to the legislature while he was still in 
bonds : so the governor pardoned him out, and he left his cell 
among the law-breakers, to take his seat as one of the law-makers. 

Robinson returned to his New England home : but that shirt of 
Nessus, the restlessness born of border life, made him one of the 
earliest emigrants to Kansas. Through all the years, that green 
prairie by the softly-flowing river, had been photographed in his 
memory. Thither he led his company of pioneers, and there they 
founded the first town in Kansas. 

Five miles south ran the little Waukarusa. Pleased with the 
n-ame, they gave it to their nascent city. Their first Herald of 
Freedom — for a newspaper is mother's milk to an infant town — 
bears date 'Waukarusa, Kansas Territory, October 21, 1854.' 



1857.] 



AND HOW IT WAS NAMED. 



37 




' WAU-KA-RU-SA.' 



But the settlers soon learned this unromantic legend of ilic ori- 
gin and significance 
of the name : — Ma- 
ny moons ago, be- 
fore white men ever 
saw these j)r;iiries, 
there was a great 
freshet. While the 
waters were rising, 
an Indian girl on 
horseback came to 
the stream and be- 
gan fording it. Her 
steed went in deeper 
and deeper, until as 
she sat upon him she 
was half immersed, Surpri.-^ed and affrighted she ejaculated 
'Wau-ka-i-u-sa!' (hip-deep.) She finally crossed in safety, but af- 
ter the invariable custom of the savages, they commemorated her 
adventure by re-naming both her and the stream, 'Waukarusa.' 
On reflection, the settlers decided not to perpetuate the story, and 
changed the name of their town to Lawrence, in honor of one of 
its most generous patrons, Amos Lawrence of Boston. 

It had two weekly newspapers, a Congregational and a L^nita- 
rian church, five or six religious societies, and a large school-room, 
well furnished, through Boston liberality. On Alassachusetts 
street were the ruins of the Free State Hotel, and for one-third of a 
mile on both sides, rows of frame trading-houses, with three or four 
brick and stone buildings, interspersed with a few pioneer log-cabins. 
On the elegantly lithographed map of the town the other streets 
were systematic and regular. But actually their buildings were 
too few and far between to indicate the thoroughfares at all. The 
eye only saw a smooth expanse of prairie dotted with a few plain 
frame dwellings. Lots were selling at from two hundred to two 
thousand dollars each, while wretched shanties, which could not 
have cost one hundred dollars, commanded eight dollars per month. 
Lawrence was already historic. Here, in 1854, the vedettes and 
scouts and advance guard of Freedom in the great conflict, 



88 



A SCENE OF SURPASSING BEAUTY 



[1857. 



stimulated bj the organization of Kansas and Nebraska, pitched 
their tents. Here, in 1855, armed Missourians took possession of 
the polls, and, later, placed the town in a state of siege; and men 
were killed on both sides. Here, in 1856, after a Lecompton 
grand jary had indicted as a nuisance the Free State Hotel, (a cu- 
riosity in legal proceedings,) and the citizens had given up their 
arms under promises of protection to person and property, the 
invaders blew up the hotel, burned the house of Governor Charles 
Robinson, destroyed two printing offices, and plundered stores and 
dwellino's. Then blazed the flames of civil war. 

Now they were extinguish- 
ed, or only smoldering. The 
hotel ruins and two mud forts 
remained relics of those stirring 
times. Yet no halo of ro- 
mance clothed the miry streets 
and rude scattered buildings. 
All was pi'osaic and common- 
place, from the soiled flooi's 
and little dingy sleeping-rooms 
of the public houses, to the 
horse traders and town-lot spec- 
ulators alons; the thoroughfares. 

But at sunset climbing Mount 
Oread, still crowned by Lane's old stone fort, I viewed an eve- 
ning picture of surpassing beaut3\ The site of Lawrence would 
have charmed Gibbon's irreverent monarch who declared that the 
Almighty never could have seen the kingdom of Naples, or he 
would have placed the Garden of Eden there. Nature made this 
for a city. It is flanked by terraced hills fcjr suburban dwellings, 
commanding pleasant views of the town below. On the north 
glides the dark Kansas, with deep forest beyond. Toward the 
south, smooth prairie affords amplest room for expansion. From 
the rude hill-top fort, while day died and twilight faded, my eyes 
lingered upon the enchanting landscape, 

' Till clonib above the eastern bar, 
The horntld luoon and one bright star.' 




JIUU FORT. 



1857.] A WAR REMINISCENCE. 39 



CHAPTER III. 



From Lawrerfce, I took stage for Topeka, thirty miles further 
up the Kansas river. We passed a log-bouse, the home of 
Colonel Titus, a notorious Pro-slavery leader. One morning he 
offered a reward of five hundred dollars for the head of Samuel 
AValker, captain of a Free State company. According to an old 
East Indian oflicer, 'Hunting the tiger, gentlemen, is capital 
sport; but sometimes the tiger turns to hunt you, and then it 
isn't so funny.' This was precisely the experience of Titus. 
That very day with a party of followers, he was surj'ounded and 
besieged by Walker's men in his little dwelling. Its logs were 
bullet-proof; but through the cracks between them whizzed and 
whirled and screamed leaden missiles from the Sharpe's rifles of 
the assailants, who lay in the tall prairie grass. The Border 
Ruffians vigorously returned the fire ; but every flash from the 
house was answered by a dozen from the prairie, and many a half- 
ounce ball came tearing in, wounding a man or plowing up the 
floor. 

Titus received one of these ugly visitors in his own arm, and 
before night a white flag floated from the beleaguered cabin. The 
attacking party ceased firing, and approached. One by one, the 
inmates came out and gave up their arms. Titus did not appear, 
and it was feared he had escaped. But at last he was dragged forth 
from a closet. His boots and coat had been thrown off, and his 
shirt sleeve was red with blood. Running up to Walker, and 
clinging to his garments, he entreated, 

'For God's sake, captain, don't let them kill me! Remember 
that I have a wife and children. For God's sake, save my life !' 

Knocking down one of his own men, who attempted to shoot 



40 



JUEIES AND COUNCILS OF WAR. 



[1857, 




CAPTUUE OF COLONEL TITUS. 



the crest-fallen fire-eater, Walker conducted the prisoner to head- 
quarters. The feeling was bitter; many Free State settlers had 
been murdered, and Titus was one of their most unscrupulous op- 
pressors. A 'drum-head' council was instantly held to decide his 
fate. Daniel S. Dickinson used to say: 'If there be anything 
beyond the fore-knowledge of God, it is the verdict of a petit 
jury.' His remark applies equally to a council of war. Accord- 
ing to the proverb it never fights; but it may do any thing else 
under heaven. This decided to kill Titus on the spot. But more 
humane suggestions prevailed ; the wounded prisoner was taken 
to Lawrence, kindly nursed, and liberated on the first lull in 
hostilities, 

Topeka is an Indian word signifying ' potatoes.' Satirists trans- 
lated it 'small potatoes,' — an interpretation which the Topeka 
philologists indignantly rejected. Here the Free Soil settlers 
had established the capital of their future State. I found it a 



1857.] ORIGIN OF THE KANSAS TROUBLES. 41 

hamlet of fifteen or twenty bouses scattered over a green prairie, 
quite as beautiful as tbe site of Lawrence. 

Kansas politics were curiously involved. There was a fierce 
struggle, and two conflicting governments. After a conflict which 
convulsed the country from Maine to Texas, the Congressional law 
oriranizins: the Territories of Kansas and Nebraska was enacted 
in May, 185-1. It abrogated the Missouri Compromise, but de- 
clared its purpose neitlier to establish nor prohibit slavciy — only 
to leave the question to the actual settlers. The North regarded 
this as opening to servitude a region solemnly consecrated to 
freedom. In some communities bells were tolled, and the na- 
tional flag lowered to half-mast. The South, especially Missouri, 
received it joyfully, convinced that it would make Kansas a slave 
State. Thus, in a moment, the great contest which had been grow- 
ing for thirty years, was transferred from halls of Congress and 
eastern rostrums, to the soil of the new Territory. 

At the first election armed Missourians overawed the polls in 
nearly every precinct, and chose a legislature composed of non- 
resident slaveholders. Bloodshed soon followed. A. H. Reeder 
of Pennsylvania, the first Territorial governor appointed by Presi- 
dent Pierce, refused to ratify all the proceedings of these spuri- 
ous legislators, and was removed from office upon a frivolous pre- 
text. His successor, Wilson Shannon, of Ohio, was a mere tool 
of the Border Ruffians. So were most of the other Federal ap- 
pointees. Some were notorious criminals, who should have been 
in penitentiaries, instead of representing the power and dignity of 
law and the National Government. When a murderer, sentenced 
to death in western Missouri, escaped from jail, a witty Ohio editor 
warned the sheriff to catch him at once, or the president would 
appoint him to some important office in Kansas. 

Missourians, in the main honest, but ignorant, were inflamed 
by Atchison, the Stringfellows, and other demagogues, into the 
belief that abolitionists meant to establish a free State beside 
them, and 'steal' their negroes. Come what might, peace or war, 
they were bent on planting their pet institution in the new soil. 

The members of the alien legislature left their Missouri homes 
to enact the fiirce of framing laws for Kansas. They made it an 
offense punishable with death to harbor or assist runaway slaves 



42 RESISTANCE TO THE BOGUS LAWS. [1857. 

and rendered any man, woman, or child, circulating anti-slavery 
publications, or denying the right to hold slaves in the Territor}', 
liable to imprisonment for five years. 'In Asia there are no ques- 
tions — only affirmations;' and these profound Solons sought to 
transfer that oriental despotism to the far west. They required 
every voter to swear support to the odious Fugitive Slave Law. 
Then they enacted in mass the ponderous statutes of Missouri, 
filling a large octavo volume of eight or nine hundred pages. 
In too hot haste even for their clerks to change the proper 
names in these laws, they prefaced them by a general act declar- 
ing that wherever the words 'State of Missouri' occurred, all 
courts should construe them to mean ' Territory of Kansas.' The 
outrageous despotism of this unexampled legislation was only 
eclipsed by its iudicrousness. 

The Missourians proposed, but the Kansans disposed. Only a 
few had been assisted to come by emigrant aid societies of Con- 
necticut and Massachusetts, but an overwhelming majority' of all 
were Free State men. They would pay no taxes, vote at no elec- 
tions, recognize no officers originating with the Territorial legisla- 
ture. They scoffed at its ' bogus laws,' and except in Leavenworth, 
Lecompton, Atchison, and Kickapoo — Pro-slavery settlements — 
utterly refused to acknowledge them, and would not suffi^'r even a 
constable to serve a civil process under them. Occasionally United 
States troops were called out to enforce the statutes. Though 
the soldiers were insignificant in numbers, the people would not 
fight them, for they represented the National Government, how- 
ever sadly its authority was abused. But they resisted the 
Missourians and Pro-slavery settlers in repeated skirmishes; 
and during this guerrilla warfare several wanton murders were 
committed. 

The Free Soilers, in a delegate convention at Topeka, had 
formed a State constitution, ratified it by popular vote, elected 
Charles Robinson governor, with a full board of State officers, 
chosen a legislature, and applied for admission into the Union. 
Thus for Congress had refused to receive them as a State. But 
they kept this machinery of the Topeka government in constant 
readiness for use. Some advocated putting it in force at once ; but 
the measure was revolutionary, and most preferred to wait until 



1857.] TWO CHARACTERISTICS OF THE STRUGGLE. 43 

their oppressions should become iutolerable. James Buchanan 
was president, and they shrank from an unequal contest with the 
National Government, likely in the excited feeling North and 
South, to light the flames of civil war throughout the Union. 

I found in the contest two noteworthy features : (1.) Practically, 
it was hardly a contest at all. Despite the tremendous odds in its 
favor, there was no reasonable probability that slavery would take 
deep root. In the entire Territory, there were not a hundred bond- 
men, and all of them could have escaped during a single night, 
without much difficulty. Not fear of the institution, but knowl- 
edge that the ballot-box was violated, and force substituted for 
law, exasperated the settlers. (2.) The Free State men warred 
not against slavery in the abstract, only slavery in Kansas, Hun- 
dreds were Missourians or northern democrats — in deadly terror 
of being termed 'abolitionists,' — frightened at the mere mention 
of that mysterious specter, 'negro equality,' — but opposed to 
fraud, and believing unpaid labor prejudicial to the interests of 
their forming State. As yet comparatively few were anti-slavery 
men, either from sympathy or conviction. In adopting the Topeka 
constitution, an overwhelming majority had decided that negroes 
should not be permitted to live in Kansas. 

Buchanan's administration w^as bitterly hostile to the Free State 
movement. Eobert J. Walker, the newly appointed governor had 
just arrived from "Washington. His eight-column iliaugural, dis- 
coursed very learnedly and unintelligibly about 'isothermal lines' 
and prospective railways from side to side and end to end 
of the Territory, to be endowed hy enormous land-grants from 
Congress. Upon the only question of living interest it was silent: 
but Walker w^as understood to acknowledge the validity of the 
'bogus' laws, and to sustain the attempt about being made to col- 
lect the taxes under them. The people w^ere as inflexibly opposed 
to these taxes, as were their New England ancestors to the duty 
on tea, or their Old England ancestors to the ship money of 
King Charles. 

A Free State convention at Topeka, on the ninth of June, en- 
abled me to study the celebrities. It was held in the open air, and 
attended by five hundred people. Their intelligence and culture 
surprised me. Delegates in blue woolen shirts, slouched hats, and 



44 FREE STATE CONVENTION AT TOPEKA. [1857. 

rough boots, with bronzed faces, and unkempt beards, discussed 
freshly-sprung questions with rare fluency and grace. The 
standard of speaking was higher than I had ever found it in Con- 
gress, legislature, or national convention. 

There was Kobinson, tlie Free State governor, who had been 
held a prisoner, for months, by the Pro-slavery authorities, — tall, 
sinewy and bald, cold, argumentative and logical, — a walking em» 
bodiment of serene common sense, the brake and balance-wheel 
of his party. 

There was Lane, uncouth and unscrupulous, zealous without 
convictions, pungent, fiery, magnetic, his keen, eager eye stead- 
fastly fixed on the Senate of the United States, — contorting hia 
thin, wiry form, and uttering bitterest denunciations in deep, 
husky gutturals. He was once lieutenant-governor of Indiana. 
Afterward, while representative in Congress from the same State, 
he voted for the Kansas-and-Nebraska bill. A dead politician at 
home, he came to Kansas to help make it a slave State. But Aw? 
bread never fell on the buttered side ; he was soon an Anti-slavery 
leader and major general of Free State forces in the field. If 
common report was not a common liar, his domestic life was 
shameless. The Border Ruffians declared that he was heartily in 
sympathy with them until the first ' bogus' legislature refused to 
grant him a divorce. lie finally obtained the decree in court, but 
was afterward re-married to his divorced wife, and lived with her 
until his death. In pecuniary matters, his unscrupulousness was 
proverbial. Again and again, I heard tales like this: One day 
Lane said to a Lawrence merchant, 

'I want five hundred dollars this morning. I have the money 
on deposit in the Ohio Life and Trust Company bank ; but it 
will consume two weeks to write and get a remittance. Will 
you cash my sight-draft?' 

There was no telegraph in those days, and eastern exchange was 
always in demand. The trader cashed the draft; and in due 
time it came back from the Cincinnati bank, endorsed — 'Don't 
know the man ; he never had any funds with us.' Lane declared 
it a mistake, but years after, he had never repaid the merchant. 

Lane was an anomaly of our civilization. No other country 
could have produced him ; our own never saw his parallel. With 



1857.] 



L A X E S r O W' E ]{ A S A N ORATOR. 



45 



but narrow education, very little rending, and utterly uncouth 
manners, he was as truly a born orator as Clay, or Prentiss, or 
Wendell Phillips. No other American has lived in our generation 
who could sway masses and legislatures as Lane swaye<l tlicse 
men of the prairies. In early days, without much fondness for 
fighting-, ho obtained extravagant military reputation, whii-li ex- 
tended to the remotest cabins of Missouri and Arkansas. Again 
and again, through those inaccessible regions, two hundred miles 
from railway and telegraph, have I been asked by settlers before 
the evening fire: 

'Do you know that man Lane, up in Kansas? I i-cckon he 
must be a powerful fighter!' 

A seemingly transparent demagogue, sooner or later lietray- 
ing every cause and every friend, he invariably claimed to embody 
some great principle, and made the sincere, the honest, and the eai'n- 
cst, his enthusiastic supporters. In spite of his notorious personal 
character, he was twice elected to 
the United States Senate. For 
years he controlled the politics of 
Kansas ; even when penniless carry- 
ing his measures against the influ- 
ence, labor, and money of his uni- 
ted enemies. His personal mag- 
netism was wondeiful, and he 
manipulated men like wax. 

Like John Wilkes, he had a 
sinister face, plain to ugliness; like 
him, too, he could talk away his 
face in twenty minutes. Defying 
every recognized rule of rhetoric 
and oratory, at will he made men 
roar with laughter, or melt into 
tears, or clinch their teeth in pas- 
sion. In war times the Free State 
soldiers, half-starved, ragged and 

foot-sore, oflen grew weary of fighting the Missourians, and the 
power and patronage of the United States Government, and de> 
clared that they would go home to their suffering fiimilics and 




46 HIS PHYSICAL ENDURANCE. [1857. 

neglected cornfields, and leave the great question to settle itself. 
Then Lane would mount the nearest barrel or dry-goods box, 
make a ten-minute S2Deech, and conclude amid a shower of cheers 
for free Kansas, the Topeka government and 'Jim Lane,' with 
Lis hearers, begging him to lead them against the enem3\ 

Kepeatedly the United States marshal from Leconipton with an 
armed posse at his heels galloped into Lawrence with a warrant 
for Lane's arrest. But the Lawrence people were miracles of 
heroic reticence. The first person asked would perhaps reply 
that he 'never heard of any such man.' Another would report 
him 'gone down South.' A third saw him an hour ago, but 
thought he was now over upon the reservation. Then a young 
man with revolver at his side would step up and demand gravely : 

' Hallo marshal, looking for Jim Lane ?' 

' Yes : where is he.' 

'Just left town. I saw him start for Iowa ten minutes ago 
with a twelve-pounder under his arm.' 

Amid the derisive laughter which followed, the angry officer 
and his posse would ride homeward. Before they were fairly out 
of sight. Lane would come strolling leisurely up Massachusetts 
street, wearing the old black bear-skin overcoat, which enveloped 
him winter and summer, and asking if anybody had heard a gentle- 
man from Lecompton inquiring for him 1 

He was a man of rare phj^sical endurance. Once when the 
routes through Missouri to Kansas were blockaded, he started 
from Nebraska on horseback, accompanied by twelve men, all 
anxious to reach Lawrence at the earliest possible hour, as their 
counsel and their rifles were alike needed. They rode hard, day 
and night, exchanging their horses for fresh ones with friendly 
settlers, and stopping only for meals. After the}^ entered Kansas 
a cold, violent storm came on, but they did not halt. One by one 
they broke down, utterly exhausted, and took shelter until they 
could recruit. Seven miles from Lawrence, Samuel Walker, 
Lane's only remaining companion and a man of iron constitution, 
reached home so completely prostrated that he thought he could 
have gone little further had his life depended upon it. But Lane 
pressed on, reached the city alone, and after three or four hours' 
rest was attending to his ordinary business. 



1857.] HIS SPEECH IN THE CONVENTION. 47 

Now, with intense earnestness, talking through every pore of 
his skin, he warned the authorities not to attempt collecting the 
taxes or enforcing the bogus code. Though quiet on the surface, 
Kansas was a smoldering volcano. Those who would open the 
crater should beware lest its hot lava make many a Ilerculaneuni 
and Pompeii even within the borders of Missouri. By promising 
donations of public land for future railways. Governor Walker 
would bribe them to fall down and worship their relentless ene- 
mies. Once upon a time another personage took the Saviour of 
men upon a high mountain, and offered him all the kingdoms of 
the earth — whole townships of rolling prairie, section upon section 
of the best bottom-land — when, as we all knew, the old scoundrel 
never owned a single foot of it I 

There was Phillips, resident Tribune correspondent — of Scotch 
birth, restless-eyed, agile as a deer, able to out-travel any horse in 
the Territory, an invaluable scout, calm, with suppressed earnest- 
ness, integrity personified — whose terse, compact words exploded 
from his lips like percussion-caps, while hearers stood with heads 
bent forward and ears strained lest they lose a single sentence. 
Years afterward in the great struggle of which this was prelude 
and epitome, he did gallant service at the head of a brigade fight- 
ins:; for the Union. 

There was Conway — slender, boyish in face, red haired, of Balti- 
more birth and South CaroHna education, yet the warmest Aboli- 
tionist of all, — a man of books, a student of Emerson, now at 
twenty-eight a judge of the supreme court under the Topeka 
constitution, — a speaker of flowing rhetoric and sonorous periods. 
In those early days when I believed slavery through the South 
would ultimately die a natural death, he said: 

' You are wrong. It is a thing of violence, and can only go 
out in violence, with blood and the clash of arms.' 

Yet in 1862, when representing Kansas in the national Con- 
gress, he alone among republicans openly advocated the recogni- 
tion of the Southern Confederacy, and the abandonment of the 
war, as the shortest way to abolition. The Kansas legislature 
passed a unanimous vote of condemnation ; and at the next elec- 
tion his constituents left him at home. There is a legend that 
when Andrew Jackson was president, complaint was made of the 
drunkenness of an army officer, to which he replied : 



48 OTHER PROMINENT SPEAKERS. [1857. 

' Sir, the colonel's gallant conduct in the war of 1812 justifies 
liim in keeping drunk during the rest of his life, if he sees fit!' 

Upon the same principle Conway's faithful and efficient services 
in the early days might excuse all later aberrations. 

There was Leonhardt, a Hungarian refugee, with splendid 
frame, noble head, and soul-full eye, — a born orator, speaking- 
English like his mother-tongue, — with flowing, brown beard, a 
voice like Niagara, and a heart like Vesuvius. At the latest 
tidings he was a soldier in our war for the Union. "Whither he 
has since gone I know not; but storms are his native element, 
and he is somewhere an actor in the world's tumult. 

There was Daniel Foster, a new-comer, a Unitarian clergyman, 
full of fire and earnestness, believing in an anti-slavery church 
and an anti-slavery God. He sleeps in the valley of the James, 
where he led his Massachusetts company when a rebel bullet 
pierced his brain. 

There was Dwight Thacher, editor of the Lawrence Fejnihh'can, 
a young man eloquent from the State of New York. After 
enumerating the successive Kansas executives who had sided 
against the Free State majority, he added: 

' And next comes Governor Walker ' — 

A voice in the crowd interrupted : 

'Here he does come and no mistake;' and an open carriage 
containing the governor, his secretaries, and two ladies, returning 
from a drive, halted within a few feet of the speaker. In no wise 
disconcerted — for Kansas governors were never held in awe, and 
seldom in respect — Thacher continued, and the representative of 
Buchanan heard sentiments which he regarded as revolutionary. 

The same evening a crowd gathered at Garvey's Hotel and 
clamored for a speech from Walker. Small in stature, with a 
squeaking voice, and without that mysterious something which we 
call Presence, the new governor did not impress them as a gun 
of heavy metal. When he spoke in 'the big bow wow strain' of 
wielding the power of the nation, he seemed 

'A painted Jove, 
"With idle thunder in his lifted hand.' 

But he spoke plausibly and fiiirly, pledging his honor to resist 



* 



di 



1857.] RECEPTION OF A BOGUS ASSESSOR. 49 

any incursions or interference witli the rights of the settlers. 
On the tax question he was profoundly silent. And here I may 
explain how this was finally settled. Missouri papers and demo- 
cratic journals both in the Territory and throughout the North, 
urged the collection of the taxes, even by the strong arm of the 
National Government. But the people were inflexible. In Law- 
rence when the assessor asked one man for a list of his property, 
a mob began to gather, and he departed abruptly. Upon his arri- 
val in Topelca he heard a party of young men step into an adja- 
cent store and inquire: 

' Can you lend us a rope?' 

' For what purpose ?' 

' There is a bogus assessor in town, and we are going to hang 
him.' 

The officer absconded again in what Choate used to call ' terrific 
and tumultuous haste,' fully convinced that the post of safety, 
was a private station. No further tax efforts were made. 

During a lovely June night I returned from Topeka to Law- 
rence on foot, in company with Samuel Walker, the captor of 
Titus. He beguiled the hours with tales of the early troubles. 
The Border Ruffians burned his house and barn, and destro^'ed 
his growing crops. Hunted like a wild beast, he had several 
narrow escapes. Repeatedly, while his pursuers were close at 
hand, he hid in a field of tall corn, and he thought it the safest 
ambush in the world. For weeks he only entered his dwelling 
by stealth. Once, going in suddenly, he found seven of the 
enemy waiting for him. Fortunately they did not know him, 
and even his children, six or seven years old, had been educated 
by constant peril to such caution that they made no sign oi' recog- 
nition. It was raining, and he addressed his wife as a stranger: 

' I am on my way to Lecompton, madam, and called to borrow 
an overcoat. Can you lend me one '/' 

' I have one here,' she replied ; ' but it belongs to my husband, 
who will be at home in a day or two, and may want it.' 

'Oh, well; I shall return in the morning and will leave it. 
Good day, madam.' 

So he escaped, but feeling as he phrased it, 'pretty streaked' 
until once more out of sight. Brave, modest and true, "Walker 



50 A COLLECTION ON FIKST PRINCIPLES. [1857. 

inspired warmest affection. The Free State men afterward elected 
Lim sheriff of Douglas County, and in the war of the Eebellion, he 
was colonel of a Kansas regiment. 

Once more in Lawrence, I saw how debts were collected in the 
absence of law. A mechanic had sold a street-sprinkler for which 
the purchaser, though profuse in promises, had never paid. One 
morning the creditor and two friends, armed with revolvers, met 
the debtor on the street and made a final demand. The money 
was not forthcoming, so they unharnessed his horse and drew the 
cart back to the shop of the original owner. The water-man 
swore and threatened lustily, but finding a majority both in 
numbers and weapons against him, finally yielded to inexorable 
destiny. It was a writ of replevin on first principles. 

Ordinarily, disputed accounts were left to referees. Much 
business was done on credit ; but obligations were met with great 
promptness. If laws for the collection of debts were everywhere 
abolished, would it not be better for all honest men? Gambling 
obligations — the only ones which cannot be enforced by law — • 
are the only debts always promptly paid. 

Lawrence was distinctively a Yankee town. The 'melodious 
twang' of New England sounded on all the streets. In Le- 
compton and Atchison were heard ' whar,' ' thar,' and ' reckon ;' 
in Lawrence 'neow,' 'idear,' and 'guess.' During the early 
troubles, when it was difficult to approach Kansas save through 
Missouri, the Border Euffians placed a guard at the chief ferry, 
and compelled every emigrant who attempted to cross to say 
' cow.' If the unfailing ' keow ' of the Yankee betrayed him, he 
was turned back again. 

Three thousand years ago the Children of Israel had a test 
precisely similar. The Gileadites held the passage of the Jordan, 
and whenever a fugitive sought to cross asked him : 

'Art thou an Ephraimite?' If he replied, 'Nay,' they com- 
manded him to say 'shibboleth,' — an ear of corn. If he rendered 
it ' sibboleth,' they knew he was of the tribe of Ephraim, unable 
to give the sound '5/i' and killed him on the spot. 'And thus,' 
according to the book of Judges, ' there fell forty and two thousand.' 

Dialect is undisguisable. It is asserted that eighty years ago 
the county of every member of the British Parliament might 



1857.] HISTORY KEPEATING ITSELF. 51 

be known by his speech. Five hundred years ago, the gentle 
Dante counted one hundred distinct dialects on the little Italian 
peninsula. And in the judgment hall the Jews said to the tcrri- 
rificd apostle: — 'Surely thou art a Galilean, for thy speech be- 
wrayeth thee.' 

I reached Quindaro again, in season to attend a public meeting. 
There were always public meetings. The people were the victims 
of oratory. Almost nightly a hand-bell would gather together 
from fifty to two hundred citizens, who would elect a president and 
secretary, call upon two or three fluent speakers to harangue them, 
pass resolutions and then adjourn, to await the record of their 
proceedings in the next issue of the Chin-do-ioan. 

lliis was a temperance meeting, Quindaro was distinctively a 
temperance town. Lots had been deeded with the express stipu- 
lation that they should not be occupied by liquor sellers. Still 
several low groggeries, fountains of bad habits and worse whisky 
had arisen to fright the isle from its propriety. All the leading 
Women joined in a petition to the men ' to take speedy and eflUcient 
measures for casting out the vile demon.' 

The meeting accordingly selected three of its members to ap- 
point a vigilance committee of twent}^, to cast out the vile demon. 
It was organized forthwith, and sallied out at daylight the next 
morning. The first saloon was kept by a herculean German who, 
refusing to give up his keys, retreated behind his bar, pointing two 
enormous self-cocking six-shooters at the invaders, and swore he 
would blow out the brains of the first man molesting him or his 
whisky. Several of the visitors also drew revolvers, but the Ger- 
man's eye was wicked, and they hesitated. 

Their leader, a lithe, young man, armed only with a whalebone 
cane, had served in Lane's army and smelt gunpowder. Turning 
to his companions, he said quietly: 

' Kill him, boys, if he shoots me.' 

Then he sprang over the bar and wrested both revolvers from 
the plucky but overpowered Teuton, But suddenly the German's 
wife, awakened by the noise, rushed from her bed-room to 
the scene of conflict, dragging a clothes-line which had caught her 
foot, and which was about the only thing in the line of clothes 
adorning her person. She flung hard words, broken English, and 



02 



'CASTING OUT THE VILE DEMON 



[1857. 



all other loose articles sLe could lay hands upon, at her unceremoni- 
ous callers. But they unlocked a closet, rolled out and emptied 




A PROuiBirouy law. 



two casks of whisky, and one of brandy. Two other saloons 
were similarly visited and purged. The Irish keeper of one 
vowed by all the saints that he had 'not a drap of the crathur,' 
and none was discovered in liis house ; but a mound of fresh earth, 
just outside suggested dark suspicions; and fi-om it was exhumed 
a barrel of whisky, which was soon spilled, to his sore discom- 
fiture. Neither ale nor beer was destroyed ; and just after sun- 
rise the committee separated for breakfast, A few weeks later, I 
encountered most of them at a champagne supper in the very 
hotel where they had organized, and from whose fi'ont steps some 
bad addressed the temperance meeting which gave them authority. 

' Strange all this difference should be, 
'Tvvixt tweedle-dum and tweedle-dee.' 



1857.] FIRST VISIT TO LEAVERS W ORTH. 68 



CHAPTER IV. 

My next trip was to Leavenworth, then, as now, the largest 
town in Kansas. It was two years and a half old, with a })Opula- 
tion of four thousand. Fort Leavenworth — two miles above, 
occupying one of the most beautiful sites on the Missouii — gave 
it life and stimulated its growth. 

Steamers were discharging fi'eight at the levee, new buildings 
were sj.)»kiging up, all was activity. As yet brick auil stone 
were litile used, and timber was a serious want. The chief native 
species are black-walnut, oak and cottonwood. The latter, which 
resembles the New England forest-poplar, but is even softer, cut- 
ting almost like cork, was largely used as a make-shift. When 
put in green and left unpainted, it warps wonderful]}-, making the 
house twist about like a corkscrew. Pine from Minnesota and 
western New York was largely in demand at one hundred dollars 
per thousand. None grows nearer than the Rocky Mountains, six 
huudred miles to the west. 

Building lots, twenty -live feet by one hundred and twenty-five, 
upon the liver landing, were valued at ten thousand dollars. 
Three or four blocks back, they sold for two thousand, and on 
the hills half a mile away, for twelve hundred. Prices were fast 
rising, money plentiful, and everybody speculating. One lot, 
which cost eight dollars six months before, had just sold for twen- 
ty-two hundred dollars. Eleven thousand dollars was now offered 
for eleven lots purchased for fifty-five dollars a year and a half eai-- 
lier. Suburban lands three miles from the river, bought during the 
previous winter for one hundred dollars per acre, were now divided 
into building lots which commanded from one hundred to two 
hundred dollars each. Hotels were crowded with strangers, eager 



5i A JOURNEY ox FOOT. [1857. 

to invest. Almost any one could borrow gold without security or 
even a written promise to pay ; and the faith was universal that 
to morrow should be as this day and yet more abundant. 

I left Leavenworth on foot. Back of the young, crude, life-full 
city, the prairie exhibited rapid settlements. Ten miles out, I 
supped with a family of intelligent Missourians, who had lived 
here for eighteen months. Half of their quarter-section was 
fenced and in corn. The claim was not yet preempted; they 
must pay the Government one dollar twenty-five cents per acre 
before receiving a perfect title, yet they had refused four thousand 
dollars for it. 

The day had been hot as the one in which Sidney Smith 
declared himself compelled to take off his flesh, and sit in his 
bones. But the evenins air was cool and fragrant, and the nisjht 
brought its blessing of peace. I could feel and almost hear the 
brooding stillness that rested upon the wide-spread prairies. 
At nine o'clock, meeting a lank settler upon a little mule, I asked 
the distance to Judge Young's, whither I had been directed for 
lodgings ; for on the frontier every farmer has accommodations for 
man and beast, and welcomes guests, who bring him the latest 
news from the outside world. The rider, long and ludicrous 
in the dim starlight, replied : 

'Two miles; but I reckon you won't get to stop thar. The 
Judge is away, and his family is sick. But thar's a place just 
over you ravine — Hayes's — whar I think they'll keep you.' 

' What kind of people are they ?' 

'Well,' (hesitatingly,) 'they'll treat you well, and give you good 
accommodations. A heap of travelers stops thar.' 

He rode beside me toward the house. My further inquiries 
about the family he evaded, replying only that they were from 
Missouri. We reached the dwelling to be greeted by two fero- 
cious dogs. For ten minutes we shouted and rapped, meeting 
with no response. There w^ere sounds within, but the door was 
S3cured. At last said my despairing guide: 

' We mought as well give it up. My place is over here three- 
quarters of a mile. We're poorly fixed for strangers, but it's good 
enough for us all the time; so I reckon you can stand it a single 
night. Come, and you're welcome. The fact is,' he continued, 



1857.] A NIGHT WITH A KENTUCKY SQUATTER. 55 

as I walked beside bis borse, 'Cbarley Hayes, wbo lives in tbat 
bouse, is supposed to be tbe murderer of Buffum.* I am deputy 
sberiff, and bave bad to arrest bim twice in tbe nigbt. The}- knew 
my voice, and probably tbougbt I was after bim again. Perhaps be 
bas been up to some new devilment, and expects me. Tbe}^ are my 
neighbors, and I avoided answering your question, because I didn't 
want to say an}^ thing fornenst them. Beside, they would bave 
treated j^ou well, and they keep strangers almost every night.' 

We were now on my guide's farm, wbicb be declared ' bully 
land.' He lariated bis mule upon tbe prairie to graze; (tied bim 
to a stake by a long rope or lariat.) Then witb a pull at his bos- 
pitable whisky flask, we entered bis one-story log-cabin by a door 
wbicb compelled us to bend low. Striking a light be illuminated 
tbe single room of tbe dwelling. It bad a huge fireplace, and was 
neatly 'cbinked' and 'daubed;' (tbe cracks between the logs 
filled witb bits of wood and plastered with mud.) His wife and 
baby occupied one bed, bis father and brother, botb long and 
lank like himself, tbe otber, while a second brotber of equal 
dimensions, witb two wbite-beaded cbildren, rested upon a mat- 
tress on tbe floor. 

Picking up bis youtbful soundly-slumbering scions as if tbey 
bad been sticks of wood, be deposited them beside tbeir mother, 
and called fortb bis brotber from tbe featbery deep. Standing up- 
rigbt in a single garment, that bewildered Kansan filled the matb- 
ematical definition of a line : lengtb witbout breadtb or thickness. 
Tbe mattress was re-arranged, and lying between these prairie 
twins, I soon felt witb Solomon that tbe sleep of a laboring man 
is sweet. 

An hour after dayligbt I awoke, to find tbe famil}^ all uj) and 
grouped around the old patriarch, wbo was in tbe act of cocking 
my revolver, wbicb I bad left on tbe mantle before going to bed. 
There was a certain unpleasantness in its sbarp click ; for tbe 
bouse stood alone on tbe prairie, and tbis was Kansas, from wbicb 
almost daily for two years I bad been wont to read some tale of 
blood in tbe damp newspaper over my morning coffee. But 
mine bost was merely scrutinizing tbe weapon to learn bow it 
worked. 

* A Free State settler wantonly killed two years before. 



56 THE FIRST LANDING AT SUMNER. [1857. 

After the wliisky flask went round, we breakfasted on strong 
coffee, fried bacon and corn-dodgers — little oblong loaves of corn- 
bread, baked in the ashes, which only attain perfection in Ken- 
tucky. These were the genuine articles, and prepared me for the 
assurance that my entertainers were Kentuckians. 

'In fact,' they added, 'we are Pro-slavery men — Border 
Ruffians.' 

What could I repl}^, save that I was a Yankee Abolitionist? 
They supposed Kansas was bound to be a free State, but hoped 
bloodshed was over, and that all future contests would be decided 
by the ballot-box. When I took out my purse, they insisted that 
they did not invite strangers to their house and receive money 
from them ; and after mutual good wishes, we parted. 

Five miles beyond, on the Missouri, I reached Sumner, barely a 
month old. The first landing from the river here, was made in the 
summer of 1855. The Border Ruffians tarred and feathered the 
Reverend Pardee Butler, and then placed him upon a raft to float 
down the Missouri, The facetious scoundrels ran up a flag from 
the craft with these inscriptions: 

'Eastern Emigrant Aid Express.' 

'Agent for the Undeiground Railroad.' 

'Tiie way they are served in Kansas.' 

' For Boston.' 

' Cargo insured ; unavoidable Dangers of the Missourians and the Missouri River 
excepted.' 

'Let future emissaries from the North beware. Our Hemp Crop is sufficient for all 
Buch scoundrels.' 

Mr. Butler, thankful to escape even thus from his enemies, finally 
effected a debarkation in the silent, unbroken forest, where Sumner 
now stands. 

I found the town with few houses completed, but many in pro- 
gress. Its aspect was promising, and its shares sold for one hun- 
dred dollars. Six weeks later they had doubled in value. Three 
years later, they were without money and without price — and 
would not command ten dollars a dozen. 

Three miles further up the river, I came to Atchison — the most 
violent Pro-slavery settlement in Kansas. It was named for the 
chief Border RuiBan leader, David R. Atchison, of Missouri, who 



' 



I 



1857.] ATCHISON, DONIPHAN, AND GEAR!' CITY, 57 

had fallen from his high estate, as president ot the national Sen- 
ate, and acting vice-president of tlie republic, to organize and lead 
armed and criminal invasions into the new Territory. 

Becently, General* S. C. Pomeroy, and other Free State men, 
had bought heavy interests and settled here, but tliey were sub- 
jected to perils and indignities. When three or four wanted lo 
converse with me upon political subjects, they carefully locked 
the doors of the little law office where we sat, and we talked in 
whispers, like guilty conspirators. That evening I dined at the 
house of the stanchest of them all. Specially obnoxious to the 
eneni}^, he had been dogged, insulted and threatened; and his 
young wife was fearful for his safety at the approaching elections, 
With pathetic glances at their sleeping child, she implored him 
to return to their Ohio home. But that mild, determined man had 
come to stay ; and stay he did, and is yet a leading citizen of 
Kansas, 

Atchison wore the dull, thriftless air of Pro-slaver}^ tow^ns; for 
Border Ruffians still haunted it: but property was already high, 
and the new settlers had given it a fresh impetus, 

Doniphan, five miles farther up, named from another invading 
Missouri leader, was also a Pro-slavery settlement. But General 
Lane and other Free Soilers were now joint owners. Fifteen hun- 
dred acres were laid out in building lots, and held a population 
of three hundred. Shares were selling at five hundred dollars. 

This was the limit of my journeyings up the river; but in 
Doniphan I heard much of Geary City, a few miles above, where 
shares had advanced from two hundred and fifty to four hundred 
dollars within a week; and of Elwood, still beyond, which ex- 
hibited similar marvels. 

The Missouri flows along the eastern border of Kansas for one 
hundred and twenty -five miles. On its bank fourteen 'cities' 

* When on his way to Kansas, he was accompanied bj' a friend, also from Massa- 
chusetts, familiar with the western fondness for titles, who said : ' Pomeroy, a man on 
the frontier, without a handle to his name, is nobody. Now what shall we call you ? 
You were once a member of the Massachusetts General Court, (legislature.) That 
title sounds well, and you must have it.' The new-comer was accordingly introduced 
aa ' General ' Pomeroy, and never lost the prefix afterward. 



58 A MANIA FOR SPECULATION. [1857. 

were begun. In each property was enormously high ; and the 
inhabitants firmly believed it destined to be the St. Louis of the 
far West. 

"When Themistocles at a feast was asked to play upon a musical 
instrument, he replied : ' I cannot fiddle ; but I know how to 
make a small town a great city.' Every Kansan thought himself 
a Themistocles. Nearly all transactions were cash, and money 
was plentiful, though commanding from three to five per cent, a 
month. Shares often doubled in price in two or three weeks. 
Servant girls speculated in town lots. From enormous buff en- 
velopes men would take scores of certificates elegantly printed in 
colors, representing property in various towns, and propose to sell 
thousands of dollars worth, certain to quadruple in value within a 
few months ! If you declined to purchase, they might ask to bor- 
row six shillings to pay their washerwoman, or twelve dolhirs for 
a week's board. Three days later, meeting you again, they would 
cancel the debt from pockets burdened with twenty-dollar gold 
pieces, and offer you five hundred or a thousand dollars for a few 
days, if it would be the slightest accommodation. 

This pantomime of actual life began with beggars clothed in rags. 
But the genie of real estate speculation touched them with his 
wand, and lo ! the tatters were gone, and they stood clothed in 
purple, adorned with jewels, and weighed down with gold. 
Young men who never before owned fifty dollars at once, a few 
weeks after reaching Kansas possessed full pockets, with town 
shares by the score ; and talked of thousands as if they had been 
rocked in golden cradles and fed with the famous Miss Kil- 
mansegg's golden spoon. On a smaller scale was repeated the 
story of that Minnesota wood-sawyer who accumulated half a mil- 
lion in half a j^ear. 

On paper, all these towns were magnificent. Their superbly 
lithographed maps adorned the walls of every place of resort. 
The stranger studying one of these, fancied the New Babylon 
surpassed only by its namesake of old. Its great parks, opera- 
houses, churches, universities, railway depots and steamboat land- 
ings made New York and St. Louis insignificant in comparison. 
But if the new-comer had the unusual wisdom to visit the pro- 
phetic city before purchasing lots, he learned the difference 



1857.] DIFFERENCE BETWEEN FACT AND FANCY. 



59 



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THE CITY OF NEW BABYLON ON PAPER. 



between fact and fancy. The town might be composed of twenty 
buildings; or it might not contain a single human habita- 
tion. In most cases, however, he would find one or two rough 
cabins, with perhaps a tent and an Indian canoe on the river 
in front of the 'levee.' Any thing was marketable. Shares 
in interior towns of one or two shanties, sold readily for a hun- 
dred dollars. Wags proposed an act of Congress reserving some 
land for farming purposes before the whole Territory should be 
divided into city lots. Towns enough were started for a State 
containing four millions of people. 

It was not a swindle, but a mania. The speculators were quite 
as insane as the rest, — 

' Themselves deceiving and themselves deceived.' 

Any one of them could have turned his property into cash 
at enormous profits. But all thought the inflation would continue ; 
and I do not remember a single person who sold out, except to 
make new investments. 



60 



A REAL ESTATE REACTION 



[l<So7. 



Much eastern capital was sunk in these paper cities. \Yhen the 
collapse came it was like the crushing of an egg-slicll. Again the 
genie waved his wand, and presto! the spangles and gold disap- 
peared, and the princes of an hour were beggars again. The 
shares had no more market value than town lots in the mooa. 
Cities died, inhabitants deserted, houses were torn down. 



*>i^^s.^i^ 



-'-^J^S*?!*- 




THE CITY OF NEW BABYLON IN FACT. 



Tlie reaction caused little actual sufferino;; for in the elastic new 
countries, men's fortunes, as the Chinese proverb avers of women's 
hearts, stand a great deal of breaking. But the speculation-fever 
unsettled the mind, bred extravagant habits and contempt for the 
slow accumulations of lesritiraate business. 

Of the fourteen river 'cities,' Leavenworth, Wyandotte, and 
Atchison alone survive. He who died o' Wednesday is no more 
lifeless than the other moths of cities wdiich flitted for a noonday 
hour. In degree, this is the history of all new States. Here at 
least, involuntary man is as profuse as voluntary Nature, whose 
fruit-tree smiles in a thousand blossoms for every maturing germ. 
Inscrutable influences of climate and geography determine the 
centers of population, and the track of empire. Man can no more 
choose the focus of emigration's converging rays, than he can by 
taking thought add one cubit to his stature. The dense western 
settlements of that unknown race which melted away before the 
Indians, and of which no vestiges remain but stupendous earth- 
works, were identical with our own — near Cincinnati and St. Louis, 
in tlie Ohio, Scioto, Muskingum, and Miami valleys, and along 



1857.] RIVALRY OF AMERICAN CITIES. 61 

the great lakes. Four-fifths of all civilized nations past and pres- 
ent, have lived within the world-encircling belt between the thirti- 
eth and fiftieth parallels of north latitude. Our own day shows a 
line of great cities — Baltimore, Cincinnati, St. Louis, Chicngo, 
Omaha, Leavenworth, Salt Lake, Virginia Nevada, and San Fran- 
cisco — extending, almost as directly as the bird flies, across the 
broad continent. Here run the grooves of commerce, the routes 
of travel, the pathway of empire. 

Before the railway era, one studying the map, soil and climate 
of the United States, would have selected the mouth of the Mis- 
sissippi, its: junction with the Ohio, and its junction with tlie Mis- 
souri, for the three principal cities of our great valley. But with 
water communication only, and in spite of the strenuous efforts of 
man, they sprang elsewhere. Such results arise not from, mis- 
takes nor contingencies. They are controlled by immutable laws, 
far beyond mortal ken. Nature keeps her own counsel. She 
shuts down upon her secrets of state the iron pressure of myste- 
rious years ; and Death and Life, who wait with potent arms to do 
her will, turn to the eager questioner lips of marble. 

Leavenworth had two deciding advantages over all competitors: 
1. It was near a military post. Ordinarily, this settles the question. 
Cincinnati, St. Louis, Chicago, Detroit, San Francisco, all had sim- 
ilar rivalries ; but each was beside a garrisoned fort, receiving its 
protection, and — far more important — its heavy trade. 2. Leav- 
enworth obtained ' the start.' Emigrants to new countries, who 
would cast their fortunes in the metropolis which is to come, 
must make no drafts on the future. Let them turn deaf ears to 
plausible theorists with elaborate maps, who prove geographically, 
climatically and statistically, that the great city must spring up in 
some new locality ; but go to the largest town and wait un- 
til some rival surpasses it. In nine cases out of ten, they will find 
no occasion to move. 

Walking back from Doniphan down the river on the Missouri 
side, I saw two illustrations of the rapidity with which the stream 
shifts its course. Like the Nile, the lower Mississippi in countless 
ages has raised its bed above the surrounding country and with 
every break in the banks swept over thousands of acres. From 
the deck of a steamer, passengers look down upon houses and 



62 



AN ENCROACHING ELEMENT. 



[1857. 



farms. Its mud-deposits have earicbed tlie lands along its whole 
course, and formed a vast tract at its mouth. This wealth of soil 
is chiefly gathered by the Missouri. I passed one firm from 
which, within a few months, the heavy current had cut away 
twentj^ or thiily acres, and undermined out-buildings until they 
were taken down, to save the lumber from floating away. The 
house, lately in the midst of a corn-field, was now tenantless, and 
on the very verge of the water. 




A SIOVINTr ACCIDE>JT BY FLOOD AN'D FIELD. 

Weston, ^lisso'.iri, was once a leading and thriving town. Now 
the eri-atic stream hn,d made deposits in fi-ont, until large buildings 
f »rmerly on the baidc, were one-third of a mile inland. At St. 
Jo,sei»li, forty miles above, and upon underlying quick-sands, the 
river was fast cutting into the city. Several acres had disajipeared 
in a single year. Brick warehouses on the levee were now de- 
serted, and their outer walls tailing. A family in the lower part 
of the town were at dinner, when the ground beneath them began 



1857.] VAGARIES OF THE MISSOURI. 63 

to tremble. At first they thought it an earthquake, but it proved 
a \vatc)--quake. They fled to a safe distance, and saw house, gar- 
den and an acre of land, slide into the encroaching element. One 
might contract to sell lots here and deliver them in St. Louis ! 
It was a flight of fancy to call such property real estate. 

At St. Joseph, the river originally flowed in front of First 
street. Now it ran along Fourth, and the intervening land bad 
di^rappeared. A non-resident who purchased levee lots soon 
after the city was laid out, returned in 1858, to look after them. 
He supposed them somewhere in the bed of the stream, but had 
the curiosity to ascertain by survey. They proved to be on the 
other side of the river, in El wood, Kansas I , 

A new town was begun on the Nebraska bank of the Missouri, 
■where the stream forms the dividing line between Nebraska and 
Iowa. Buildings rose, lots rose likewise, and the warm imagina- 
tions of proprietors saw, in the smiling distance, a great OAiy. Alas 
for human expectations ! It was at the extreme point of an ox- 
bow curve; and during a fresliet, the perverse Missouri took a 
new path, straightened its crooked channel, and left the great 
commercial city of Nebraska, standing in Iowa, five miles off — ns 
uncertain about its own identity as the heroine of the nursery le- 
gend who w^ondered 'if I be I!' It was a curious disregard of 
State rights, a rare form of involuntary annexation, a novel freak 
of manifest destiny ! 



64 DEADLY AFFRAY AT THE TOLLS. [185T 



CHAPTER V. 

I VISITED Leavenworth again on the 29tli of June, believing 
the municipal election of that day could not pass without armed 
collision. Nor did it. Late at night when our steamer landed, 
watch-fires blazed on the levee, drinking saloons were crowded, 
excited men bearing gvins and revolvers were gathered in little 
knots, or walking to and fro. A friend whom I met pacing the 
sidewalk with a Sharpe's rifle upon his shoulder, explained the 
cause. 

Most of the Pro-slavery men, satisfied that their rule was over, 
refrained from voting. The entire Free State ticket was elected 
by a vote of three hundred and eightj^-five to seventy. James T. 
Lylc, the city recorder, was a young Georgian who during the 
early troubles assisted in tarring and feathering and shaving the 
head of Phillips, a Free Soiler afterward wantonly killed in 
Leavenworth. He was also present at the atrocious murder of 
Captain E. P. Brown, who was literally chopped to pieces with 
hatchets, at Easton, Kansas, in January, 1856, and his bleeding 
corpse flung before his young wife, who was made a maniac by 
the horrible tragedy. 

At the polls on the day of my arrival, a Border Ruffian ballot 
was offered to a German. He tore it to tatters, asking: 

'Do you suppose I would vote that d — d Pro-slavery ticket?' 

This instantly provoked an affray in which all the bystanders 
took part; and upon both sides several revolvers were fired. 
William Ilallcr, a young Ohioan whose property had once been 
burned by Pro-slavery men, urged the German to stand his 
ground. Lyle turned upon Haller, asking: 

' What is it to a^ou ?' and raised a knife. But before he could 
strike, Haller stabbed him to the heart, and he fell dead. 



1857.J A KANSAS TEMPLE OF JUSTICE. 65 

Ilaller was arrested, and strongly guarded by the police; but 
they were intensely Pro-slavery, and Lyle's friends were arming 
and threatening to lynch the prisoner. So the Free State men 
with lifles and revolvers were on duty to protect their comrade 
and tvalch the officers. The Pro-slavery party was also gathering 
and bearing weapons. 

Through the long night streets resounded with tramping feet, 
and five hundred men were under arms, in drinking saloons, at 
street corners, in front of the guarded building in which Ilaller was 
confined, and around the little office where rested the white, fixed 
face and rigid form of Lyle. Bat no further outbreak occurred. 
The next morning a preliminary investigation was held before a 
relic of Border Kulhan rule, who had risen from a livery stable to 
the justice's bench. It was in the unfinished stone court-house, 
^vitll unhewn walls, rough benches and a single table. The cigars 
of the lawyers darkened this temple of justice, and the magisti'ate 
heard the testimony while reading a newspaper. Many witnesses 
were examined, and, as in all affi'ays, persons who louki'd on from 
the same point at the same moment, swore to exactly opposite 
statements. Once an attorney for the defense took his cigar from 
his moutli, and behind a huge puff of smoke, objected to certain 
testimony on the other side as inadmissible. The justice gravely 
replied : 

' The court sustains the objection and rules that the question 
cannot be asked at this stage of the game.^ 

The inference was, that 'the court' pla3'ed poker. Ilaller was 
held for trial. Application for his admission to bail was argued 
before Judge Lecompte, chief justice of the supreme court of the 
Tei-ritory. His decisions had been so uniformly and flagi*antly 
partisan, {hat he was nicknamed ' Jeffi-ies Lecompte.' Under tlie 
'bogus code' framed by his own party, all degrees of homicide 
were bailable; and Lecompte had released notorious criminals 
charged with the murder of Free State men, upon their giving 
bonds for appearance at trial. 

But this was his own ox which had been gored. In summing 
up the testimon}', he called Lyle's bowie 'a small knife which he 
did not purpose to use offensively,' though witnesses had sworn 
that it was from eight to twelve inches long, and that deceased 



66 A MURDER FOR MONEY. [1857. 

had raised it to strike when he received the mortal wound. He 
refused to admit Haller to bail, ordering him to Fort Leavenworth 
for safe keeping. The prisoner was taken from the court-room in 
the custody of six United States soldiers, amid the flashing eyes 
and suppressed breathing of the Free State lookers-on, who des- 
pite their reverence for the Federal uniform, wanted only a leader 
to have rescued him by force. (At Lawrence one morning the 
following winter, I encountered several mud-stained men who 
during the previous night had escorted Haller from the fort, 
whence he escaped by bribing the guards. He reached Ohio 
safely, and six months later resumed his residence in Leaven- 
worth, where he was never again disturbed.) 

Leavenworth was the scene of frequent violence. On a July 
evening upon the river bank, a stranger named James Stephens, 
was murdered, and his body robbed of one hundred and eight dol- 
lars. Quarles and Bays, two of his friends residing in the city, 
testified before the coroner's jury that they were walking with 
him, when robbers attacked the party and murdered him, while 
they ran for their lives. But 'conscience is a thousand witnesses;' 
their statements were so contradictory and improbable, that the 
jury returned a verdict charging them with the murder, and they 
were at once taken into custody. Then Quarles made a full con- 
fession. 

Hitherto, every homicide in Kansas had resulted from the slav- 
ery controversy. According to historians, the remorseless Marats 
and Robespierres of the French Revolution, who shed blood like 
water, did not take a piece of money or a watch from their butch- 
ered victims. They even guillotined their own wretched agents 
detected in plundering. They would have life, not gold. So the 
Kansas conflict had witnessed no mercenary element in all its 
atrocious crimes. But here was a cold-blooded murder for money. 
Free State and Pro-slavery men, alike hopeless of the laws, meant 
to punish it. 

Two thousand people gathered at the jail. Judge Lecompte 
addressed the mob, deprecating violence, and asserting that all who 
eno;ao;ed in it would be liable to indictment for murder. This was 
answered with the howls: 'Indict and bed — d!' Lecompte at- 
tempted to go on but he only elicited hoots, and at last ominous 



1857.] A MOB ADMINISTERING JUSTICE. 67 

suggestions about making an example of him for permitting and 
aiding criminals to escape; so he wisely withdrew. Then another 
speaker sprang upon a box and commanded the peace, announcing 
himself as the United States marshal for Kansas. Instantly arose 
a stoi-m of cries : 

' Down witli him !' 'He's the greatest scoundrel in the Territory.' 
'Let's hano; himP 

The officer's voice grew husky, and his face bloodless; and he 
too, disappeared in the crowd. 

The mob picked up the city marshal and police as if they had 
been children ; carried them a few yards, and there held them ; bat- 
tered down the iron door of the jail with a stick of timber ; dragged 
forth Quark's, and hung him from a cottonwood tree overlooking 
the city. For a moment the poor wretch clutched the rope above 
his head, lifting himself up ; but a heavy ruffian caught him by 
the feet, his grasp gave way, and he never struggled again. 

Two hours later the crowd again surrounded the jail and de- 
manded Bays. In vain the Free State mayor and other leading 
citizens sought to restrain them. The prisoner's wife, a vigorous 
young Irish woman fought like a tiger, but they took her away 
as gently as possible, again used the battering ram, brought out 
the criminal, and ran with him to the gibbet. He refused to con- 
fess ; held his own hands behind him to be tied ; and cast on the 
crowd a half-scornful, half-triumphant expression, while he was 
swung off from the limb. To what base uses may come the stulT 
of which martyrs are made 1 

Meanwhile, Woods, an alleged counterfeiter, and Knighten, a 
weak young man, who like poor dog Tray had fallen into bad 
company, were arrested as accomplices and confined in the may- 
or's office. Blood inflames a mob like a wild beast; the appetite 
grows by what it feeds on. On Sunday night, twenty-four hours 
after the executions, six hundred persons collected in the street 
and began to clamor for Woods, with shouts of: 'Hang him !' 'hang 
him.' But this was not so easy. The mayor's office in the 
second story of a high frame building, was only approachable 
by an outside flight of rickety stairs. At the foot stood four deter- 
mined guards, with drawn revolvers. If the crowd overpowered 
them and made a rush, the stairs would certainly give way, and 



68 'THE MAN WITH TUE EOTE.' [1857. 

precipitate the ministers of vengeance into a yawning cellar, twen- 
ty feet below. 

While calmer citizens were expostulating, and urging that the 
prisoner should have a trial, the shouting mob surged like a Leavy- 
swelling sea. One young man sprang upon a brick pile and dis- 
played a rope. Then went up tremendous cries, — 
'Woods !' ' Woods !' ' Bring him out !' ' Hang hiin !' 
But now another, mounting the brick pile, harangued them 

'"With throat of brass and adamautiue lungs.' 

He approved yesterday's proceedings ; but no^v let us impanel a 
jury of twelve leading citizens, and try these prisoners. 

'All right!' 'Go ahead.' 'We'll give you just twenty minutes 
for doing it.' 

Eleven residents answered to their names, and went up the 
stairs; but there was difficulty in findmg the twelfth; and one or 
two whose names w^ere called, declined to serve. 

'Send along any man,' suggested the volunteer marshal; 'send 
the man with the rope.' 

Enthusiastic cheers folhnved. The crowd bore their champion 
to the foot of the stairs, where, with American respect for the jury- 
box, he left his rope behind before ascending. 

The open sesame of 'the Press,' admitted me to the trial room, 
whose windows were raised that the crowd outside might see the 
prisoner. Woods was a Kentuckian, fifty years old, who had been 
spending the day in making a will, leaving eight thousand dol- 
lars of property to his two daughters in Tennessee. Knighten 
was a thin-witted boy whom the criminals had taken into their 
conhdences. But he only knew^ from the statements of Quarles 
and Bays, that Woods was their confederate in circulating coun- 
terfeit bank-notes. Woods was closely interrogated, but denied 
every thing. 

The crowd now grew impatient, fired with the usual fondness of 
mobs for hanging a man first and trying him afterward. Shouts 
of ' Time up !' ' We have waited long enough !' ' Hang them both 
any how^ !' rent the air. 

The scene was exciting. A single dim candle lighted the room, 



1857.] 



AN EXCITING NIGHT SCENE. 



69 



showing tlie anxious, troubled faces of jurors, grouped around the 
prisoners, in monventary expectation that tlie bloodthirsty outside- 
ers would rush in. The questioning ceased, and the suppressed 
painful breathing of every man present was heard. Kuighten 
grew pale as death, and great drops of sweat stood upon his fore- 
head. Woods, huge, brawny and hardened, sat erect, waiting his 
fate. He spoke doggedly : 

'Well, gentlemen, tjou ccui't hang me hut once!'' 




'you can't IIANO he BfT onceI' 

Despite this bravado, his f icial muscles twitched, and as all con- 
firmed lovers of tobacco use it more freely under strong excite- 
ment, he tore off great shreds of Virginia leaf, and liis craunching 
jaws rose and fell with the haste of desperation. Outside, it was 
light as day, and the full moon of that Sabbath night illumined a 
moving sea of fierce, upturned fiices — a dense, surging mass of 
clamoring uncontrolable men. Lady Wortley, surprised at the 



70 MORMONS ESCAPIXG TO KANSAS. 1857.] 

costly dress of our working })eople, declared that a mob in tlie 
United States, is a mob in broadcloth; but this was a mob in shirt- 
sleeves. A few wore coats, carelessly thrown open, revealing leath' 
ern belts, where glittered the silver mounting of bowie knife, or 
the polished steel of revolver. 

From the windows the jurors begged more time, Avhich was 
reluctantly granted. With two or three repetitions of this scene, 
the trial lasted till midnight. Then they reported to the assembly, 
that after rigid investigation, they had only elicited a few facts 
throwing suspicion upon Woods and Knighten, but nothing that 
would convict them of murder or other crime in any court of jus- 
tice. To which the crowd responded by calling for 'the man with 
the rope.' Their champion strong at hanging, but weak at speech, 
making, appeared in the window, was cheered, and confirmed the 
statement of his associates. Then the mayor, in a temperate 
address, urged that the law should take its course; and the 
quieted mob at last dispersed. The prisoners were committed 
for trial ; and after the usual mode of Kansas justice, bribed their 
keeper and escaped from jail before the expiration of two weeks. 

While I was in Leavenworth, one hundred recanting Mormons 
arrived from Utah, and sought homes in Kansas, These families, 
bringing all their earthly possessions by ox-teams, had been sixty 
days on the long road from Salt Lake. They represented the 
tyranny of the Mormon church as unendurable, and the practical 
workings of polygamy as repulsive and disgusting. Violent 
threats were made to prevent their escape; and they believed that 
only their numbers saved them from violence at the hands of the 
remaining Saints. 

In July one hundred thousand acres of public lands were sold at 
Osawkee, Jefferson county. Theoretically to the highest bidder; 
actually each quarter-section to its occupant at its appraised value: 
from one dollar and fifty cents, to four dollars and fifty cents per 
acre. The ' settler,' who lived fifty or a hundred miles away, had 
built a cabin or driven a stake upon his claim, and could there- 
foreswear that he was a bona fide resident ! The constructive squat- 
ters respected each others' rights and protected their own. The 
first man who ventured to bid against one of them was instantly 
shot down ; so there was no further competition. 



[1857. THE LAND SALE AT OSAWKEE. 71 

Many sold tlieir newly-acquired lands to speculators at double 
the cost within an hour aller bidding them off. But hundreds 
borrowed money at five per cent, a month, and invested it here. 
I knew a Tennesseean who loaned funds at this rate to forty-five 
young men, taking the Government title to each tract in liis own 
name, but giving a bond to deed it back to tlie actual purchaser 
upon the payment of principal and interest. Two years later, ho 
told me that he still held every one, as not a single note had been 
paid. 

Money abounded and times were flush. One evening I bor- 
rowed one hundred and fifty dollars from a total stranger, to aid 
in purchasing a quarter-section ; for I had not escaped the univer- 
sal mania. When I offei'ed a mortgage as security, he replied: 

'It would be some trouble to have the papers drawn, and cost 
us five or ten dollars. Just send me the money by express within 
two or three weeks.' 

David's covetousness for the wife of Uriah, was no stronger than 
the lust ot the frontier Yankee for territory. Town shares and 
quarter-sections passed as currentlj' as bank-notes or gold dollars. 
It was history repeating itself; for according to Partoii, in tlie early 
days of Tennessee, people in trading used to say : 'I will give you 
a three-twenty,' or 'I will take a six-fortj-.' Six hundred and 
fort}' acres near the present city of Nashville, once sold ibr three 
axes and two cow-bells. 'The circulating medium of Europe is 
gold, of Africa, men, of Asia, women, and of America, land.' 

Two thousand people attended the sales at Osiiwkee. In this 
interior town of a dozen houses, a huge hotel had been erected ; 
every building was crowded, and hundreds of strangers lived in 
tents, or slept on the grass in the open air. Streets were filled 
with blinding dust, and heated like furnaces by the Jul}- sun ; 
gambling and drinking booths stood upo7i every corner: reeking 
odors poisoned the air, and a new Coleridge might have sung of 
this mushroom Cologne : 

'In Colin, a town of monks and bones. 
And pavements fanged with murderous stones, 
And rags, and hags, and hideous wenches, 
I counted Ave and seventy stenches.' 



72 



BORDER RUFFIAN COURTS OF JUSTICE. [1857, 



The public temper was very inflammable and kindled like gun- 
powder from the fointest spark. The Pro-slavery party claimed 
to be distinctively 'Law-and-order men,' but their courts of jus- 
tice were the most dangerous places in the whole Territory. 
Scores of murders had been committed, but no one had ever been 
puuisliL'd for any crime against a Free State citizen. 

At Tecumseh, Boynton, an inoffensive Free Soiler, surrounded 
by Pi-o-sluver}^ neighbors who were trj'ing to drive him fiom his 
claim, brought suit against one Adnms, who had thrice attempted 
to shoot him. The United States commissioner merely held both 




LAW-AND-ORDER MEN. 



parties to five-hundred-dollar bonds to keep the peace. During the 
investigation Newsom, Teri'itorial prosecuting attorney elected 
by the bogus legislature, denounced Boynton as a d — d liar. 






1857.] A QUASI DECLARATION OF WAR. 73 

After the court adjourned, Boynton asked an explanation, wlien 
the official repeated the epithet, and struck him upon the head with 
a bowie knife, cutting a gash three inches long. Tliis fired even 
the man of peace, and he responded with his clinclied fist, which 
sent Newsom reeling through an open door into an adjoining office. 
The bystanders, including Adams, upon whose bond to keep the 
peace the ink had not yet dried, drew their revolvers; but Boyn- 
ton flying the court-room, escaped their bullets and found refuge 
in Lawrence. 

The previous spring's immigration, almost exclusively from the 
North, had given the Free Soilers large numerical ascendency. 
Now they began to stand boldly upon their rights and defy ^Mis- 
souri. Their July Territorial convention passed a quiet, but 
significant resolution : 

Whereas, preparations are being made in Missouri to control the coming Kansas 
elections; — 

liesvlied, That this convention appoints and authorizes General James II. Lane, to 
organize the ueople in the several districts, to protect the ballot-boxes. 

After this quasi declaration of war there were no further inva- 
sions. 

Osawkee was a Pro-slavery town. One day during tlie land 
sales. Governor Walker, Secretary Stanton of Tennessee, and other 
' National Democrats,' made political speeches. When they had 
finished, the Free Soilers present called out one of their own num- 
ber Charles Foster of Osawatcmie. In a fiery addrcps he urged 
that under the rule of the same National Democracy which was 
now wilHng to bring Kansas into the Union even as a free State, 
their piopcrty had been destroyed, their homes invaded, and their 
soil drenched with innocent blood. 

Some of liis hearers hissed I others shouted : 'Knock him down !' 
'Out with him!' 

Instantly twenty cocked revolvers were displayed by his friends 
around the stand, and he was permitted to go on. 

Frequently while riding in the vicinity of Osawkee, I encoun- 
tered the original owners of the soil, jogging along on horseback, 
sometimes sober and reticent, but often whisky-inspired and up- 
roarious. The squaws usually rode in couples, with papooses 



74 



TREASON TO BE PUT DOWN. 



[1857. 




INDIANS TRAVELING. 



Strapped on their backs, and older children astride before and be., 
hind them. Nearly all the Kansas Indians lived in log-cabins, 
and made some pretenses to civilization; so they were less migra- 
tory than their race in general. But sometimes they sought fi-esh 
fields and pastures new, or were joined by immigrants and visitors 
from Texas and the Cherokee nation. Tlicse bedouins of the prai^ 
I'ie invariably car- 
ried their lodges 
with them, the 
buffalo robes roll- 
ed and strapped to 
poles, attached to 
the ponies like 
wagon shafts at 
one end, and drag- 
ging upon the 
groui^l at the 
other. Papooses 
were suspended 

between the poles, and seemed to enjoy joui-nejnng by this rudi' 
mental ' one hoss shay.' 

My stay in Osawkee, was cut short by a fresh excitement. The 
Lawrence people, without authority from the bogus laws, had 
formed a municipal organization, electing a mayor, alderman, and 
other city officers. It was a movement common in new coun- 
tries, and chiefly designed to impose and collect taxes for removing 
offal, grading streets, and protecting the public health. But 
Governor Walker, great in his new-fledged dignity, thought it part 
of a universal plan for organizing the nascent State, and put- 
ting the Topeka government in force. He held it treason and 
grim-visaged war. In a flaming proclamation he declared : 

'A rebellion so iniquitous, and necessarily involving such awful consequences, has 
never before disgraced any age or country I' 

He marched three hundred Federal soldiers from Fort Leaven- 
worth upon Lawrence ; and it was even thought that the little city 
would be a second time destroyed for the crime of Free State 
sentiments. 



1857.] FALLACY OF HUMAN TESTIMONY. 75 

At this perturbed iind expectant moment, late one Saturday 
night, a breathless messenger reached Osawkee. He asserted, 
with minutest particulars, that he was just from Lawrence, which 
Walker's troops had begun to bombard, and that he left the city- 
wrapped in flames. What did I in the North when I should serve 
my employer in the South ? With several friends I started for the 
new seat of war, thirty miles away, expecting to find the town in 
ashes. 

After a hard night's ride, we came in sight of it, just as the sun 
was rising. It was very unlike smoldeiing ruins. Not a gun 
had been fired, a building dii^turbed, or a man arrested. There 
stood the city iu the light of that Sabbath morning, calm and 
peaceful as any hamlet in the world. A mile west, on the prairie, 
gleamed white tents of the encamped soldiers, with sentinels pa- 
cing to and fro; and that was the sole foundation for the story. 
Our messenger had somewhere heard the rumor which he repeated 
as a fact of his own observation. To me it was a valuable lesson. 
Again, and again, during the great civil war, that experience 
saved me from being misled. All army correspondents learned 
sooner or later that strong excitements breed rumors as great 
swamps breed mosquitoes; that most human testimony is utterly 
untrustworthy ; that one can believe only the evidence of his own 
senses, and those persons in whose truthfulness he places abso- 
lute confidence. Every day, in courts of justice, honest and intel- 
ligent sworn witnesses contradict each others' statements in the 
most positive manner. In a company of a dozen, it is an interest- 
ing experiment to whisper the details of some simple bit of news 
in fifty words to one's next neighbor. Thus let it pass around 
the circle; then request the last recipient to repeat it; and the 
innocent little morsel that was sent forth on its tour, will scarcely 
retain an infinitesimal part of its identity. 

Governor Walkei-'s blunder was more fatal than a crime. There 
was nobody to arrest, for no overt act had been committed ; and 
there was nobody to fight, for nobody had taken up arms. The 
Kansas people who held Federal governors their natural enemies, 
enjoyed the rupture amazingly. According to Emerson's test, they 
were the best orators, for they could call the most nicknames. 
The two or three feeble Border Ruffian papers yet surviving, 



76 GOVERNOR EXTINGUISHED BY RIDICULE. [1857. 

made faint and doubtful essays in favor of their weak champioiL 
The Free State journals flushed with new-born strength, abounded 
in droll chronicles of 'the siege of Lawrence,' and the great 'iso- 
thermal war.' Wags issued solemn burlesque proclamations de- 
claring it high treason, punishable with death, to grade streets or 
remove dead cats from the gutters. In a public meeting, the peo- 
ple resolved to receive no communication from the governor, un- 
less made through their newly elected mayor. Walker had 
sown dragons' teeth, and he reaped armed men. Half a dozen 
communities, which had never thought of it before, (one em- 
bracijig the very land upon which the troops were encamped,) 
immediately imitated Lawrence, and elected municipal officers. 
A committee from one of these towns consulted the governor 
upon tJK'ir movement. He replied: 

'Go on gentlemen — if you wish to fight the entire army of the 
United States.' 

The entire army of the United States is strong, but not strong 
enough to defend a man against ridicule. Destiny in the form of 
the Lawrence Yankees was too much for his excellenc3\ Tired 
of an unequal contest vvhicli had made him the laughing-stock 
alike of the Territory and the entire North, he imitated the his- 
toric Charles who. 



Marched up 



With twenty thousand men, 

a hill, and then — marched down again. 



I 



1857 I WILD FllUITS OF THE riiAIKIES. 77 



CHAPTER VI. 

In August I became a squatter, and made ' a claim.' This is 
the frontier term for the one hundred and sixty acres which the 
real or constructive settler ' improves ' and claims for his future 
home. Only after preemption and a perfect title from the Gov- 
ernment, is i* called his farm. 

With several companions whose eyes were dazzled by visions of 
landed proprietorship, I started from Quindaro on a tour through 
the unsettled county of Johnson, one of the fairest and richest 
regions of Kansas. In the belt of deep woods eight or ten miles 
wide along the Missouri, the summer tints were of wonderful 
beauty and variety. Purple wild plums of delicate flavor, half 
the size of apples, abounded ; from tree and bush hung vines 
heavy with ripening grapes, not larger than peas, but plump, 
palatable, and much used in cooking; wild cherries and crab 
apples grew in profusion ; and the thickets bent under heavy 
loads of elder-berries, of which a bushel could be gathered in a 
few minutes. They lack pungency, but in the absence of other 
fruits frontier housewives convert them into tasteless preserves 
and insipid pies. 

Crossing the Kansas, we reached the prairies and left the woods 
behind. Here and there were scattered trees along the for-apart 
streams; but they were like angel visits. This lack of timber was 
the most serious drawback of pioneers; yet the farmer would 
far better settle where he must go twenty-five miles for house and 
fence lumber and firewood, than w^here he must clear away for- 
ests to make room for his corn and grass fields. The latter is the 
work of one or two generations ; but in this rich Kansas soil the 
locust grows like Jonah's gourd, and the cotton wood attains a 
trunk-diameter of five or six inches in six years. Its feathery 



78 



AX EMIGRANT FAMILY IN CAMP, 



[1857, 



seed floats on tlie wind and takes root in plowed fields miles 
away from the mother tree. 

Toward evening we passed several parties of immigrants, 
chiefly from Missouri. Come to this encampment, and see how 




A FAMILY ENCAMPMENT. 

kindlv frontier families take to a roving life. The long, heavy 
wagon, its roc^f covered with white cotton cloth, stands a few 
yards from the road. It is packed with provisions and household 
utensils; and two or three pots and kettles are suspended from the 
hind axle. Tlie tired oxen graze upon the neighboring prairie. 
The white-haired children are playing hard by— five or six in 
nnndjer, for these new countries are marvelously prolific. The 
husband is milking the patient cows, the wife is preparing a 
snipper of griddle-cakes bacon and coffi-e in the open air, at the 
camp stove, the hens are cackling socially from their coop, while 
the old fi^mily dog wags his tail approvingly, but watches with 
solicitous care the baby creeping about the wagon. 



1S67.] RAIN INCREASING WITH CIVILIZATION. 79 

When crossing tlie great deserts to Utah or California they toil 
wearily along from twelve to twenty miles per day. The long- 
bearded, sLaggy drivers, tanned to the hue of Arapahoes, look 
like animated pillars of earth, and seem under the perpetual sen- 
tence : ' Dust thou art and unto dust shalt thou return.' Each 
keeps his trusty rifle or shot-gun within grasp ; and at night the 
wagons are parked in a circle, and the cattle driven into the 
extemporized yard which they inclose, as a protection against 
Indian surprises. Eternal vigilance is the price of travel. The 
children of the immigrants revel in dirt and novelty, but their 
mothers cast eager longing eyes toward their new homes. There 
is profound truth in the remark that 'plains-travel and frontier 
life are peculiarly severe upon women and oxen.' 

We found the prairies robed in emerald green, and lit up with 
the gorgeous flowers of late summer. The wealth of the soil 
appeared inexhaustible. Where the spring streams had cut into 
it for thirty feet, the ravines displayed ricli alluvium, black as jet, 
down to the bottom. It seemed as if no soundings could pene- 
trate beneath it. It is like those rich bottom-lands along the 
Muskingum and Miami rivers of Ohio, which without the appli- 
cation of any fertilizing substance, have produced corn every 
season for half a century, and still yield fifty or sixty bushels to 
the acre. The grass was a miniature forest. In some of the wet 
lowlands it rose above our heads and completely hid us from 
each other, when a few yards apart, though we were mounted on 
tall steeds. 

There is a curious logical connection between civilization and 
rain. All along the frontier, Indians declare that the white man 
brings rain with him. Thirty 3^ears ago, Missourians living on 
the opposite bank of the river thought the soil of Kansas good for 
nothing on account of its rainless climate. Since the young State 
was settled, it has suffered only twice from dry seasons, and of 
late good crops and increasing rains have dispelled all appre- 
hensions. 

Now, however, we found the weather intensely hot, and the 
high prairies parched with drowth. Hour after hour we jour- 
neyed under the scorching sun, discovering neither shade nor 
water. Several of my comrades suffered intensely from thirst. 



80 A SHEEWD SPECULATOR IN LUMBER. [1857. 

Their tongues became swollen, and their lips cracked, until the 
blood ran from them. At last we espied in the distance a feeble 
willow, sure indication of moisture. Spurring thither our jaded 
horses, we found a pool of stagnant water. The surface was 
covered with green scum, and as I lay down to drink, a slug- 
gish lizzard crawled in from the bank. But necessity knows no 
scruples, and the famishing never criticise. Every mouthful of 
that jelly-like fluid was flavored with fever-and-ague ; yet my 
long draught was the sweetest I had ever tasted. 

We found hundreds of claims already taken, chiefly by Mis- 
sourians, who had visited them once, and made ' improvements ' 
— inclosing a little square with four logs or rails laid upon 
the ground. Yet in riding twenty-five miles we saw but one 
occupied dwelling. We were truly on the outer verge of civil- 
ization. 

We selected and staked our quarter-sections, and after returning 
to Qaindaro, sent out boards and had a cabin erected upon each. 
But a few weeks later when we went back to look at our 'dwell- 
ings,' some enterprising scoundrel had carried away every one of 
them ! He did not leave a single board, rafter, or splinter. Not- 
withstanding the forty dollars which his cupidity cost me, I 
have profound respect for that shrewd speculator who not only 
obtained so much valuable lumber for nothing, but found it 
already delivered thirty miles in the interior, when the expenses 
of hauling were enormous. It must have enabled him to build a 
palatial mansion ; but my experience was a ludicrous satire upon 
the ancient legal fiction that every man's house is his castle. 

From such' a school must have graduated the th Kansas 

Infantry which acquired rare reputation for plundering during 
the great rebellion. A number of Kansas regiments marching 
through Missouri, revenged themselves upon their old enemies; 
but this had unapproachable genius for plunder, which the camp 
stories used to illustrate with genuine American exaggeration. 
One of them ran thus : In an Arkansas campaign a general officer 

found the entire th grouped around a saw-mill and weeping 

like Niobes. 

■' Why, boys,' he asked, ' what is the matter ?' 
Matter enough!' sobbed one enterprising volunteer. 'Thus 



/I 



1857.] WITHIX PRISON WALLS. 81 

far we have never left any thing behind us ; but we can't possibly 
steal this saw-mill !' 

In August I attended the trial of Governor Charles Eobinson at 
Lecompton. The Border Ruffian capital, in a rough little 
hollow, was composed of few dwelling-houses, many land-offices, 
and multitudinous whisky saloons. Free State friends pointed 
out to me the building where they were confined as prisoners 
during the early troubles. In close, filthy quarters, and covered 
W'ith vermin, they spent many weeks, not only cheerfall}', but 
often in a state of absolute hilarity. It seemed incredible ; for I 
had not then learned how much contentment depends upon 
temperament, and how little upon the externals of life. Years 
later, I noted the same fact in rebel prisons. The feelings of men in 
those dens of misery, shut out from all the comforts of life, and 
with suffiiring and death constantly before their eyes, did not 
differ materially from their feelings after they were restored to 
liberty. Indeed, a friend declares in all sincerity that the two 
years he spent in their scenes of horror were the most cheerful of 
his life. Doubtless, love for the cause in which he suffered, and 
unshaken faith in its triumph, account for some of his fortitude. 

The world owes much to her prisons. They have been store- 
houses in whose safe keeping ripened seeds which have borne a 
plentiful harvest. How often have they given back blessings to 
the hand of tyranny, and Uivished upon ungrateful ears music, 
which the following generations caught up to bear along in 
triumph! Chambers of royj^ty, they have held enthroned our 
sages and singers. There sat Socrates and Bacon, Raleigh and 
More and Tasso. There Marco Polo recorded his strange, roman- 
tic story. There brilliant, tireless Defoe edited his semi-weekly 
Review, forerunner of the modern newspaper. There Cervantes 
commemorated the immortal Quixote. There John Bunyan opened 
that well of living water, 

'"Whose drops 
Of cool refreshment drained by fevered lips, 
May give a shock of pleasure to the soul, 
More exquisite than when nectarean juio© 
Renews the life of happiest hours.' 



82 LAST TREASON TRIAL IN KANSAS. [1857. 

The United States district court at Lecorapton was held in a 
rude apartment, furnished with three tables, two chairs, and half- 
a-dozen planks for seats, resting upon blocks, stones, and boxes. 
Judge Cato was an avowed disunionist of the South Carolina 
school. Tall and thin, with closely-shaven face, and overgrown 
moustache, he wore the ermine carelessly, studied the Charleston 
Mercury intently through his heavy gold spectacles, and gave only 
an occasional glance at the business before him. Wier, the dis- 
trict attorney, stout, florid, and red-whiskered, sat on a table 
with his feet elevated upon the stove. The lookers-on exhibited 
every variety of dress and physiognomy. Eobinson was charged 
with usurpjition of office. He admitted his election as governo> 
under the Topeka State constitution, his issuing messages to the 
State legislature, approval of its enactments, and other gubernato- 
rial functions. But the witnesses swore that this action was only 
preparatory^ ; that it had never been the intention to put the gov- 
ernment in force, until Kansas should become a State in the Fed- 
eral Union. This was not quite true. Nearly all the Free State 
men had designed to set the Topeka government in motion and 
support it by force of arms, whenever the Border Ruffian Terri- 
torial authorities should drive them to the wall. 

The judge was overbearing and violent; but Robinson's coun- 
sel, confident that the Pro-slavery rule was nearly ended, faced 
him boldly, objected to some of the jurors as vagabonds and 
notorious partisans, and took exceptions to nearly all his rulings. 
Even the prosecuting attorney, froni long habit repeatedly spoke 
of the prisoner as ' Governor' Robmson, though always quickly 
changing it to 'Doctor' Robinson. 

In summing up, the court charged the jury that if they found 
Robinson had assumed to be governor of the State of Kansas, 
(which then existed only in name and not at all in law or in fact,) 
they must find him guilty as charged by the indictment, of usurp- 
ing the office of governor of the Territory of Kansas ! 

After two hours absence the jurors re-appeared and asked that 
the case might be re-opened, and one witness re-examined, as they 
liad forgotten his testimony ! Even Cato refused to do this ; and 
soon after they returned a verdict of Not Guilty. Thus ended 
the last treason trial in Kansas. 



1857.] 



TRAVELING TO A CONVEXTIOX. 



83 




A few days later, a Territorial Free State convention was held 
at Grasshopper Falls. Going thither with two friends, 1 journeyed 
for hours on the Delaware Indian reservation, fifteen miles by- 
forty. Its richness and beauty showed Kansas a country worth 



84 SIEGE OF HICKORY POINT. [1857. 

struggling for. Tbere are many old lake beds, basins ocooped 
out of the prairie. Around their shores runs a well defined stra- 
tum of limestone, like an artificial wall ; and for miles a similar 
line girdles the isolated hills, suggesting that they were islands 
before the waters were gathered into one place and dry land 
appeared. But geologists decide that these seemingl}^ ancient 
water-marks are onl}'- limestone strata which lie evenly in all the 
bluffs. 

Our road was an obscure track in the prairie grass. We jour- 
neyed on and on until dark, and then for hours afterward, finding 
no traces of human life. Late in the night we met four Indians 
on horseback, of whom we inquired the distance to Oskaloosa. 
They replied in pure English, that they knew no such town; cer- 
tainly it was not in that vicinity ; the nearest white settlement was 
ten miles distant upon the Kaw river. 

In spite of the Indian fondness for romance, their seeming intel- 
ligence and honesty convinced us that we had mistaken the 
way. So we lariated our mules to graze, and slept soundly upon 
our blankets on the ground, with the soft grass for a pillow, and 
the gemmed sky for a roof. 

In the morning we woke to find hair and beards dripping with 
dew ; but cold and rheumatic twinges are strangers to that pure 
summer air. Fifteen minutes after starting again, we were in 
sig'.it (~)f Oskaloosa. "We had not wandered from our road, but the 
noble savage, true to the instincts of his race, had been fabricating 
falsehoods out of whole cloth. 

We breakfasted at Hickory Point, a little group of buildings 
besieged and captured by Free State men in 1856, after several 
had been killed on both sides. One log house still displayed huge 
apertures where the shells had torn through its thick walls. Our 
landlord of this morning commanded the Pro-slavery garrison 
daring the skirmish; and still bears the scar where a rifle ball 
struck him as he was taking a drink. This fire in the rear spilled 
his whisky, and gave him an ugly wound. Yet he lived, not to 
fight another day, but to regale us with an excellent meal. He 
seemed chatty, courteous and honest. 

The convention was large and earnest. It elicited exciting dis- 
cussions upon voting at the fall elections. Hitherto, after being 



1857.] 



A DECLARATION BY BUCHANAN. 



85 



repeatedly overpowered by Missouri invasions, the Free Soilers 
had absented themselves from the polls, believing that the Border 
Ruflians, who held all the machinery of government, would cer- 




>v »»i\a.-^'= VcSi "io 



A FIRE IN' THE REAR. 



tain!}" dofeat them by force or fraud. Now the Free State men 
held an immense numerical majority. But to vote on the day 
and in the manutM- prescribed by the illeixal and invading legisla- 
ture seemed to cive a kind of recos»;nition lo the boons laws. Ad- 
vices from "Washington had just assured them of President Bu- 
chanan's design 'with the help of God,' to enforce those statutes. 
They were fully determined to resist them to the last. The ap- 
portionment too was notoriously'' unfair. The old Pro-slavery 
counties were given an enormous excess of representation, while 
a Free State section of twenty counties comprising almost half 
the population of the Territor}', was entitled to only three out of 
fifty-two members of the legislature. 

But Governor Walker had promised that the test oath should 
not be enforced, and that he would insure them a fair election. 
Many, distrusting him, earnestl}^ opposed voting. Others advo- 



8(3 THE BALLOT OR THE PvIFLE. [1S57 

cated it as a stratagem : to beat the enemy at Lis own game ; ta 
get possession of the Territorial government, at all hazards. Theii 
counsels prevailed ; it was decided to vote. Lane declared : 

'The Territorial legislature belongs to us, and we are going to 
liQ^ye it — bj' the ballot if we can, by the rifle if we must. If we 
elect only one member we intend to make him a good working 
majority.' 

The fall canvass was exciting. Pro-slavery men confidently 
asserted that they should triumph — which meant either invasion 
or fraud. The Free Soilers organized and went armed to the 
polls. 

In Quindaro, when the voting was over and before the general 
result was known, public feeling was painfull}^ wrought up. It 
was like the choking anxiety in a court-room, after an absorbing 
trial, v/hile prisoner and foreman stand up face to face, and all 
wait breathless for the verdict. First came a report that the 
Territory was so closel}' divided, that Leavenworth, the most pop- 
ulous county and electing eleven members, would decide the 
character of the legislature. At the heels of this followed another 
rumor, that through gross frauds and hundreds of illegal votes at 
the little precinct of Kickapoo, Leavenworth county had elected 
the Pro-slavery ticket; and that Governor Walker had given cer- 
tificates to the candidates fraudulently chosen, thus retaining the 
government in Border Euffian hands for two years more. 

In the midst of the indignation this caused, his excellency paid 
Quindaro a visit. Within half an hour after his arrival, a gray- 
haired citizen, who, until then, had always borne the reputation of 
a Conservative, took me aside, and said with flashing eyes: 

' We shall never get our rights peaceabl3^ Walker persuaded 
us to vote with fair promises ; and now he has betrayed us. Here 
he is ; let us make an example of him, and teach old Buchanan 
that we are in earnest. The boys are all ready.' 
' Eeady for what ?' 

' Ready to take him out of the hotel, and hang him upon that 
tree !' was the startling reply. 

My fiery friend finally acquiesced in the suggestion that we 
should wait to verify the reports. The event proved tliat Walker 
had given certificates to the fraudulently-chosen delegation. But 



1857.] RUPTUIIE IN THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 87 

there was a large Free State majority in the legislature, which 
turned out the spurious members during the first week of its ses- 
sion. And thus the Territorial government passed into the hands 
of the bona fide settlers. 

But the end was not yet. During the previous summer a Pro- 
slavery convention to form a State constitution had beiii held at 
Lecompton. The act of the bogus legislature authorizing it dis- 
qualified all but registered voters from participating in the election 
of delegates. In half tlie counties no registry was made ; in others 
the Free State men were not registered, and they staid ;iway fi'om 
the polls. They would have dispersed the convention by force of 
arms but for Governor Walker's emphatic assurances tliat he 
would oppose any constitution it formed, unless submitted to a 
vote of the people, and that President Buchanan had solemnly 
promised him to take the same course. So they quietly ignored 
the gathering, intending to repudiate its offspring at the polls. 

But the convention did not submit to the people for ratification 
the constitution which it made. Buchanan, infamouslv violatinp^ 
his plighted faith, urged Congress to admit Kansas as a slave 
State under this fraudulent instrument adopted by a minoi'ity of 
the voters in less than half the counties of the Territorj'. Jla even 
used the patronage of his high office to induce senators and repre- 
sentatives to join in the outrage. Governor Walker kept his 
pledges, and Buchanan remorselessly dismissed him. Senator 
Douglas, too, broke away from his life-long political associates, 
and stood firm against this outrnge upon the rights of tlie settlers, 
declaring that if it was [..-ersisted in they ought to resist, even to 
fighting the Government of the United States. Thus began that 
rupture in the democratic party which resulted in the election of 
Abraham Lincoln and the southern rebellion ; and thus tlie Le- 
compton convention has a national and historic interest. 

In Kansas the attempt to thrust it upon the peojjle kindled hot 
resentment. Several assassinations ensued, and in south-eastern 
counties along the Missouri border frequent and bloody skirmishes 
occurred. At Territorial conventions all the delegates, in writing, 
pledged their lives their fortunes and their sacred honor to resist 
the usurpation, even by force of arms. Ordinarily the Free Soilers 
were divided into cliques and factions, but this pressure com- 
pacted them into concord and forgetfulness of old feuds. 



88 FIFTEEN WHISKY PUNCHES. [1857. 

The legislature held an extra session, passed, over the govern- 
or's veto, an act for organizing and enrolling the entire popula- 
tion capable of bearing arms, and elected a military board, consist- 
ing of one major-general, (Lane,) eight brigadiers, and adjutant, in- 
spector, quartermaster, commissary and surgeon-general. I knew 
no more of military matters than of Sanskrit ; but the greatness 
thrust upon me converted me into assistant adjutant-general and 
secretary of the board. 

That body meant business ; but its paraphernalia was not gor- 
geous. Indeed it looked a good deal like the Arizona legislature, 
which used to meet in a log-cabin with a dirt floor. Our sessions 
were held in a Lawrence hall over the ' Commercial' restaurant. 
The membei's lived in widely separated portions of the Territory. 
Chilled with long winter rides, they would enter, in slouched 
hats, top boots and blue army overcoats with enormous capes ; 
crowd around the stove, and canvass the latest news or rumor of 
disturbance. No inferior rank was tolerated ; every man was a 
general. At the appointed hour Lane, ex-ofi&cio president, would 
rap on the table and command in his hoarse gutturals : 

' The board will come to order.' 

Then he pulled at the bell-rope until a waiter appeared. 

' John, bring us one, two, three, four,' (counting the members 
present,) ' fourteen hot whisky punches and a box of cigars. Ah ! 
Jo\\n^ fifleen hot whiskies. General "Walker, 3'OU are just in time. 
General Eichardson, 3'ou will read the minutes of the last meet- 
ing.' 

The completion of the reading found the board warmed exter- 
nally and internally for the transaction of business. Lender its 
auspices organization and enrolment progressed rapidly. The Terri- 
torial governor, (Denver,) issued a proclamation against it ; but 
proclamations were cheap and plenty, and his was unheeded. 
There were frequent rumors that he was about to promote its 
leading members to the lionors of martyrdom by arresting them ; 
but, once begun, he could hardly have stopped without arresting 
the whole population of Kansas. So he confined his warfare to 
paper bullets of the brain. 



1858.] NIGHT niDES ON THE PRAIRIES. 



CHAPTER VII. 

The winter of 1857-8 was a stirring one for a Kansas news- 
paper correspondent. Every week was alive with excitement — 
an alarm to-day, an outbreak to-morrow ; and the point of interest 
shifting so constantly kept one flying back and forth like a shut- 
tlecock to meet it. I took long prairie rides, sometimes remaining 
all night in the saddle. The nights were most lovely ; often so 
bright that even in the woods, and when there was no snow upon 
the ground, I could easily read the finest type of a daily newspaper. 

Sometimes the flist-falling snow would obliterate the prairie 
roads, and clouds darken the sky. More than once I wandered 
bewildered until daylight, and then found myself miles out of the 
proper course. The wind always blows: it chills the whole frame, 
and at times is so violent that in riding against it, one is in dan- 
ger of being swept out of the saddle. I frequently saw men so 
chilled that after walking awhile to warm themselves, they had 
to be lifted upon their horses. 

Some of the night rides were easy and agreeable—peaceful 
hours passed in the soothing society of nature ; and hours, too, of 
rest, for while the horse walks, or even trots slowly, the practised 
rider often sleeps, until the stopping or changing gait of his 
steed awakens him. There is no appreciable danger of falling, 
unless the horse stumbles or the saddle turns. Mexicans and In- 
dians easily sit on horseback when so drunk that they cannot 
stand upon the ground. 

In equestrianism men have an easy, natural and safe position. 
If women were to adopt it instead of their present tiresome and 
perilous mode of riding, the gain in health, comfort and security 
would be very great. 



90 SEEKING SHELTER AMONG THE INDIANS. [1858. 

At the end of these nocturnal journeys I often reached home 
with bloodshot e3'es, and every shred of skin shaven from my 
lips by the wind as if by a razor. But one or two days always 

restored me: for nature par- 
dons every hygienic sin in him 
who loves her free, health- 
giving atmosphere. Hardships 
which would prove fatal in cit- 
ies, are easily endured upon 
prairie or mountain. 

On a dark December eve- 
ning I left Lawrence for Quin« 
daro. Fifteen miles out on 
the lonely road, the clouds 
gathered themselves into an 
unbroken dome of bhick ; and 
tlie darkness grew so dense 
that I could hardly see my 
open hand two inches before 
my eyes. Then the rain 
poured in torrents. Fortu- 
nately I was in a little strip of 
forest, where my horse could 
not leave the track without 
running against the trees. In 
this extremity I joyfullj'- de- 
tected lights, shinino; through the chinks of a log-cabin. Riding; 
up and pushing open the door, I was greeted with the clamor of 
half a dozen noisy dogs. It was the only dwelling within ten 
miles; and its interior conveyed a certain suggestion of comfort. 
I asked : 

'Can I find lodgings here to-night?' 

There were three Indians upon stools around the rude supper 
table. The oldest and most stolid grunted an affirmative, beck- 
oned me in, and sent one of his companions to care for m)'- horse. 
Throwing off my dripping overcoat, I stretched myself before 
the log fii'e, which from the great hearth lighted up the whole 
cabin. It was a single room, ten or twelve feet square. The 




A COMFORTAIJLE SLUIHJER, 



1858.] A NIGHT WITH A DELAWARE FAMILY. 91 

three men, dressed in coats and pantaloons, bad long coarse black 
hair, sinister eyes, and brooding, suspicious countenances. A 
stout squaw, cheery and open-faced, who wore zinc ear-rings as 
large as silver dollars, sat humbly waiting for the nobler sex to 
finish their repast. Crouching beside her was a girl of eight 
years also wearing the metallic ear-rings. 

Before I had completed this inventor}-, a vigorous squall drew 
my attention to a distant corner. There, from a swinging ham- 
mock, an Indian papoose of American descent screeched so lus- 
tily that his dusky mother seized him, dandled him on her knee, 
and soothed him with the sweetest baby-talk of the Delaware 
tongue. He looked like an infiuit mummy. He was on his 
back, bandaged so tightly to a board that he could only scream, 
roll his head and wink ; but he performed all these functions at 
once with miraculous vehemence. His lips were at last silenced 
by application to 'the maternal fount;' and then he was set up 
against the wall like a fire-shovel, to inspect the company. 

Supper over, the little girl filled and lighted an earthern pipe 
with reed stem a foot lono:. Smoking a few whiffs she handed it 
to her mother. That stolid matron finished it; and we all sat 
staring silentlj* into the fire. The gii'l, true to her sex, found 
courage to scrutinize my gold sleeve-buttons, watch and chain, 
and every other glittering article she could find about me, greet- 
ing each with some fresh ejaculation of delight. Then she kissed 
the papoose, and crept to her straw nest in another corner. 
Mine host knew a few English words and I asked him: 

'What is your name?' 

' Umph. Four Miles.' 

'And his? 

' ITniph. Fall Leaf.' 

'And the little girl's?' 

' 0-kee-au-kee. No English.' 

And Four !Miles was again overcome by one of his brilliant 
flashes of silence. 

At bed-time, as I unbuckled my revolver, he glanced in- 
quiringly toward it, took it with nervous care, turned it over 
and over, stared solemnly into the barrels, and then returned it 

' Umj^h. Good. How much?' 



92 ORIGIN OF INDIAN APPELLATIONS. [1858. 

' Twonty dollars.' 

And with another grunt, Four Miles relapsed into speechless- 
ness. 

My bed was of plank, M-ell covered with blankets. Through 
the whole night I had a dreamy consciousness of shivering; and 
when daylight appeared I noticed the absen<',e of a log in the 
cabin wall beside me, which left an aperture sufficiently large to 
admit either a man or enough cold air to cover him. A gen- 
erous style of ventilation for which I was not adequately grateful. 

Upon the stone hearth blazed a bright log fire, and around it 
were grouped the family, all with colds in the head, and all in 
fearful contiguity to the open cooking utensils. I forced down a 
few morsels of breakfast ; but it was a signal triumph of mind 
over matter. My horse was brought to the door, and I asked : 

'How much?' 

* CJmph — two dollars.' 

AVhich I paid and departed, while the noble savage grunted a 
friendly adieu. 

A few weeks later while driving to Lawrence, with my wife 
and child, and the wife and child of a friend, another sudden and 
violent storm compelled us all to spend a night in the same cabin. 
The ladies relished the novelty of the experience but when 
breakfast appeared, no entreaties could induce them to taste it. 
After we reached our journey's end, they began a vigorous scru- 
tiny of the children's heads, which, judging from their ejacula- 
tions of horror, was not altogether barren of results. 

Four Miles received his name because he once ran four miles 
without stopping. 

Another Delaware taken captive in war, escaped and made a 
long journey back to his own village, eating nothing on the way 
but a little loaf of corn bread. He was immediately re-christened 
'Journey-cake.' Several of his descendants yet survive and bear 
that fomily name, though the white settlers corrupt it into 
Johnny-cake. 

Years ago, in battle with the whites, a Delaware youth was 
made prisoner. One day he took up a plank from the floor of his 
guard-house, descended to the ground, and crept out in the long 
grass, eluding the sentinel Finally, having a fair start, he rose 



1858.] THE DELAWARE BAPTIST MISSION. 93 

up to rim. One soldier fired at him without effect, and then 
shouted to his comrades : 

' Catch him !' 

But he was nimble-footed and made good his escape. He lived 
to become head chief of the Delawares, who gave to him and his 
children the appellation, 'Ketch'm' or 'Ketchum,' which ever 
afterward they bore. In 1857, overtaken by the pale Pursuer 
whom no swift foot outruns, he gave up the race, and went to 
dwell in the happy hunting grounds. 

Each of the eight Indian tribes in Kansas lived upon a ' reser- 
vation.' The very word bears a sad suggestion of the retreating 
and dwindling of their fading race. These reservations were 
always excellent lands; consequently the Indians were driven 
away whenever the white settlers coveted them. 

The tract of the Delawares, embracing some of the richest por- 
tions of the Territory, was forty miles by twelve. This desert of 
barbarism contained one oasis of civilization — the generous dwell- 
ings and school-house of the Baptist mission. In the early days, 
prairie travelers would ride hard to spend the night in that 
pleasant and homelike retreat. Rev. John G. Pratt, who con- 
ducted the mission, had resided here among the Indians for 
twenty years. The little pupils of his school illustrated the mys- 
terious bleaching process of the frontier, by exhibiting faces of 
everv shade from aboriginal brown to Saxon white. The teach- 
ers averred that they equaled white children in intelligence ; but 
it was almost impossible to teach them cleanliness and truthful- 
ness. In many branches they were apathetic and stolid, but music 
roused them wonderfully, and it was pleasant to see their eyes 
sparkle while they sang with animation and zeal. Among the 
names on the school register were ' Fall Leaf,' ' Black Stump,' 
' Beaver,' ' Bullet,' and the like, interspersed with Jones, Brown 
and Robinson. One Delaware was called ' Best Quality,' and 
another ' White Stone.' How these primitive names recall the 
long roll in English history : ' Ethelred the Unready,' ' Flambeau 
the Firebrand,' 'Rufus the Red,' 'Richard of the Lion Heart,' and 
' Edward the Longshanks !' How they suggest the more fomiliar 
American appellations, 'Old Hickory,' 'Old Bullion,' 'Rough and 
Ready,' ' ^[artin the Fox,' ' Old Public Functionary,' ' the Path- 
finder/ 'Little Giant,' and 'Father Abraham!' 



94 ANOTHER night's LODGING. [1858. 

The Delawares were once the leading tribe on our continent, sq 
eminent for their valor and wisdom that more humble Indiana 
styled them ' the Grandfathers.' They dominated other nations 
and treated with William Penn where Philadelphia now stands. 
For several years the Baptist mission has been supported by Gov- 
ernment. The school contains ninety pupils. Under the influ- 
ence of peace and education, the Delawares have increased from 
eight hundred to one thousand two hundred during Mr. Pratt's 
residence among them. Now the railway surrounds tliem. A 
few will remain and become citizens; the rest migrate to the 
Cherokee country, south of Kansas. 

Evening once overtook me at one of their cabins ten miles from 
the nearest white settlement. Rain was falling fast and the road 
was a quagmire. Of a youthful Missourian who stood in front of 
the dwelling I asked : 

'How far is it to Sacoxie's?' 

Sacoxie was an old chief whose house was popular among trav- 
elers. A pert young squaw standing beside the Missourian, with 
a knowing grunt held up all the fingers of her right hand and one 
of the left, while he replied: 

'Six miles; and awful roads. But you can get good accommo- 
dations here, /stop here.' 

'How long have you lived among the Indians?' 

'Three years.' 

'Do you like it?' 

. ' Yes, — not exactly : but you know a fellow likes best where he 
can do best.' 

' Have you married into the tribe ?' 

' No — not particularly. I just stay here.' 

' The Delawares are not very strict about marriage ?' 

'No, they are sort of promiscuous; when a fellow likes a 
squaw he just gives her old man a present — sometimes a pony, 
sometimes four or five dollars in money — and takes the girl. 
They live together as long as they like, and then separate, or 
trade off with some other couple. The children go with the 
mother ; and the more children the better, because every person 
in the tribe gets one hundred and sixty dollars a year from the 
United States Government.' 



i 



1858.] SOMETHING ABOUT THE SHAWNEES. 95 

' ITave many white men married Delaware women?' 

' Only eight in all.' 

'But half-breed children seem numerous?' 

' yes, stranger; there are a good many whites traveling through 
here !' 

I found the good accommodations of the cabin to consist of a 
single room with earth floor, which could only be entered through 
a filthy hen-house. Upon one of the beds sat a stolid squaw in a 
bright red calico frock, nursing a little papoose, who greeted me 
with an infantile whoop. Three more tawny children were play- 
ing in the mud ; four scurvy dogs lying in corners, and a dozen 
chickens pervading the apartment. It contained three bunks, a 
table, four or five chairs, a rifle, a broken looking-glass, various 
kitchen utensils, and an enormous fire-place in which I could 
stand upright. Mine host was a burly, reticent savage. Our 
entire conversation was as follows: 

He. — Umph. How? 

I. — How ? Wet weather. 

He. — Umph. Much wet. 

My supper was of fat pork, corn bread and strong coffee. My 
couch of straw was deluged with rain and pre-occupied by bed- 
bugs. Early in the morning I indulged in a repetition of the 
evening bill of fare, disbursed the required 'six bits,' (seventj^-five 
cents,) and bade a glad adieu to my aboriginal entertainers. I 
never learned their name, but could very feelingly have dubbed 
them ' Good Accommodations.' 

The Shawnees like the Delawares were once a warlike nation. 
They still cherish a legend that their ancestors crossed the sea ; 
and the}'' are the only tribe who have any such tradition of a 
foreign origin. Their reservation was in Johnson county. They 
occupied good houses, and in civilization were second only to the 
Wyandottes. By the organic law of Kansas, Indians who had 
' adopted the customs of the white man ' were allowed to vote. 
All had adopted one frontier custom : that of drinking whisky. 
But only the Shawnees and Wyandottes were permitted to use 
the elective franchise. 

One Shawnee was called 'Blue Jacket,' and another 'Silver 
Heels ;' while a young Wyandotte belle rejoiced in the name of 
' Mud-eater.' 



96 POTTAWATOMIE FUNERAL RITES. [1858. 

Spending a night at the house of Charles Fish, a Shawnea 
chief, I encountered several of his tribe who had come from 
Texas to claim two hundred acres of land each, which had just 
been secured to them by a treaty with the United States. One 
was a dumpy old brave, with pumpkin face and so many orna- 
ments dangling from his dusky ears, that they sent forth the en- 
ticing music of sleigh-bells. Another, a fantastic youth, had a 
kerchief of bright red encircling his forehead like a band of 
flame. He wore deer-skin moccasins, with gay fringes, a calico 
hunting shirt also trimmed with fiery red, and cloth leggings 
which left his hips bare to the winter winds. Some of the squaws 
were very dark, others nearly white ; and all by glaring kerchief 
or shawl betrayed the barbarian fondness for bright colors. I 
often encountered these women on the prairie with bright-eyed 
papooses firmly bound to their backs peeping over their shoul- 
ders, and one or two older children sitting before them ; while 
wooden pails, chairs and other heavy burdens weighed down the 
unfortunate steed. The men rode beside them carrying nothing 
but their whisky bottles, out of respect to the Indian principle of 
leaving work to women. 

The reservation of the Pottawatomies was thirty miles square. 
No white man could settle upon it unless he first married into the 
tribe. In 18-16 the Pottawatomies numbered five thousand. In 
1858 they had become reduced to two thousand seven hundred, 
and were diminishing at the rate of five per cent, a year. Their 
dead are buried with their guns, saddles, ' medicines,' food, and 
tobacco beside them. Sometimes a favorite horse is killed and 
interred with his master. The medicine-men or prophets con- 
duct the funeral service, which consists of a prayer to the Great 
Father in this strain : 

' We are sorry to part with our brother who was a daring 
brave and a good Indian, and whose lodge contained many 
scalps of his enemies. But we have yielded to Thy will, and we 
commit him to Thy care. We have outfitted him, as Thou seest, 
for his long journey ; and now we desire Thee to lead him to the 
fair land beyond the setting sun, where game is always plentiful, 
uiid bad Indians and white men never come.' 

A stake at the head of the grave is carved into a rough effigy 



ORIGIN OF SOME KANSAS NAMES. 



97 



1858.J 

of the ' medicine ' of the deceased, and is marked with a notch for 
ef:ch scalp he had taken, if he did not find this brief life all too 
short for successful indulgence in that favorite pastime of his 

tomahawking race. 

Some bodies are buried in sitting posture ; and others are placed 
on the boughs of trees, 
where they remain until 
from decomposition the 
bones fall to the ground. 
The Pottawatomies ob- 
serve many fast days, 
with wild fantastic dances 
and music. One band in 
tlic tribe claims lineal de- 
scent from the Children of 
Israel. 

Kansas towns perpetu- 
ate many Indian names. 
Osawattomie, the home of 
old John Brown, was 
formed from the Osage 

and Pottawatomie rivers at whose junction it is built. Oskaloosa 
was named in joint honor of Oska, an old chief, and Loosa his 
squaw. Osawkee signifies ' the yellow leaf Hiawatha in Brown 
county commemorates Longfellow's hero. Kinnekuck is a cor- 
ruption of Kc-an-ne-kuck, (the foremost man,) a great Kickapoo 
prophet. 'White Cloud 'was a brave chief among the lowas, 
and the city of White Cloud is built on his old hunting ground. 
Waubonsec is from Wau-bon-sic, (the dawn of day,) the name 
given to a Pottawatomie leader who attacked an enemy just at 
daybreak. 

There is a legend of an old brave within the present limits of 
Wisconsin whose squaw annually presented him with a girl. 
Women are of little repute among the Indians, and the heart of 
the chieftain longed for a son and heir. But the squaw had all 
the obstinacy of her sex ; and every twelvemonth the appearance 
of the inevitable girl filled him with despondency and chagrin. 
On one of these sad occasions the unhappy brave visited a 




INDIAX BURIAL. 



98 A LITTLE LEGENDARY LORE. [1858. 

little grocery, for settlers were already en'croacliing upon his 
domain. He was plunged in profoundest gloom, and refased to 
drink or talk. 

A white loafer, knowing his disappointment, congratulated him 
upon the new arrow added to his domestic quiver. With a look 
of unutterable disgust, he ejaculated ' She-boy-'gin !' (she-boy 
again !) strode from the house, and never again returned to the 
scene of his broken hopes. And when a flourishing town sprang 
up around the little grocery, it was named by common consent 
Sheboygan. 

'I cannot tell how the truth may be ; 
I say the tale as 'twas told to me.' 



1857.] GOVERNOR DENVER MAKES HIS DEBUT. 89 



CHAPTER VIII. 

Excitement now ran high. Force was almost the only law. 
Civil war seemed ready to blaze forth again at any moment. The 
fierce strife had lasted for three years, and the end was not yet. 
According to Daniel Webster, our fathers fought seven years for 
a preamble ; a later writer declares that the people of Kansas 
battled four years to veto an act of Congress. Every news- 
paper. North and South, teemed with Kansas reports, received b}' 
telegraph and mail, from exchanges or resident correspofldents. 
According to a popular story, a country subscriber stepped into 
the Tribune counting-room, desiring to purchase a back number. 

' Which edition ?' asked the clerk. 

' The Weekly.' 

' Do you know the date ?' 

'Not exactly, — about a year ago.' 

* How can you identify it ?' 

' Well, it contained something about Kansas P 

As that description applied to ever}-- issue of the Tribune for the 
last three years, the countryman went away empty-handed. 

This winter Buchanan appointed James W. Denver governor, 
superseding Robert J. Walker, who had refused to become a party 
to the bad faith of the administration. Denver was an Ohioan 
by birth, and had been a California pioneer, once representing the 
latter State in Congress. In 1852 he killed in a duel Edward 
Gilbert, editor of the Alta California and member of the Congres- 
sional delegation. 

Denver came to Kansas as a national democrat, and entered 
upon his new duties on the twenty-scQond of December, 
1857. His first official experience was novel. A year before,, the 



100 AND HAS A SPIRITED RECEPTION. [1857. 

Territorial authorities liad seized one hundred and fifty mus- 
kets and carbines from a Free State emigrant train, and they 
were now stored at Lecompton in the basement of the governor's 

office. 

Sixt\' citizens of Lawrence, under Colonel Eldridge, called upon 
Denver the morning after he reached Lecompton, and de- 
manded that the arms be given up. Denver declined, on the 
ground that he iiad no authority, and that the Free State men 
wanted them to overawe the ballot-box at the approaching elec- 
tion of January fourth. Eldridge offered to give any required 
security that the guns should be used for no such purpose. Ilis 
excellency still refusing, Eldridge remarked : 

' Governor, those guns are private property ; taking them 
from us was an outrage ; keeping them there has been an out- 
rage. We have come here fully armed, and we are going to have 
them 1' 

This was a final argument, and proved effective. The arms 
were carried triumphantly to Lawrence. In Delaware City a hun- 
dred United States muskets were stored in the office of a physician. 
At midnight the doctor was roused by a messenger who implored 
him to visit a dying man several miles distant. He saddled his 
horse and rode to see his suppositious patient, but no dying man 
was found. When he returned the arms were gone. Delaware 
was a Pro-slavery town, and this ruse was adopted by Free State 
men from another settlement to obtain the guns without bloodshed. 
In January, a party of Free Soilers from Leavenworth, visited 
Kickapoo, and captured a brass twelve-pounder belonging to the 
Kickapoo Rangers. Harnessing six horses to the gun, they 
adorned it with flags, and brought it home, bearing the label, 
* Election returns from Kickapoo.' This inscription was the key 
to much bitter feeling. At two provisional elections under the 
Lecompton constitution the most glaring frauds had been practised. 
The figures from a few precincts will illustrate : 

Precinct. Legal Voters. Votes Returned. 

Oxford, 100 1288 

Delaware Crossing, 35 535 

Kickapoo, 100 1057 

Sliawnee, 163 129 



1857.] 



WONDERFUL ELECTION KETUllNS. 



101 



Of seven tliousand votes polled for the Lecomptou constitution 
in December, less than two thousand were legal. In Kickapoo 
the voters formed a ring which enclosed the polls and a whisky 
saloon. As it slowly revolved, one man deposited his ballot, while 
another on the opposite side of the circle, improved the halt by 
tidcino- a drink. Many voted half a dozen times under ficticious 



the 



names ; 
judges conniv- 



ing 



at 




the 
fraud. The 
poll-books re- 
turned Henry 
Ward Beecher, 
James Buchan- 
an, Ilornce 
Greele}', Wil- 
liam II. S.'- 
ward, M\d Ed- 
win Forest, 
duly sworn to 
as amongst the 
voters ! The 
returns from 
one precinct of 
Johnson coun- 
ty contained 
more than a 

thousand names copied alphabetically from an old Cincinnati 
business directory. 

The legislature, now under Free State control, passed a law 
submitting the Lecompton constitution to a vote of the people on 
the fourth of January. The same day was set apart by the Pro- 
slavery authorities for electing State officers under it, to be ready 
to serve the moment Congress should ratify it and change the 
Territory into a State. 

There was much discussion among the Free Soilers as to 
whether they should vote for these State officers, that in the pos- 
sible contingency of Congress admitting Kansas into the Union, 






VOTING IX KICKAI'OO. 



102 TO VOTE OR NOT TO VOTE. [1858. 

under the Lecompton constitution, the power might still remain in 
their hands. A Territorial convention of three hundred delegates 
met in Lawrence and discussed the question for two days. One 
party favored voting to get possession of the government. The 
other opposed it on the grounds that all the Free Soil settlers had 
steadily repudiated the Lecompton constitution as illegal and 
fraudulent ; that to vote under it would recognize its validity ; and 
that all the election judges, being Pro-slavery, they would surely 
be defeated by flilse returns. 

This warm debate continued hour after hour. The convention 
was nearly equally divided, but the trembling scale was suddenly 
turned. Lane was in the field near Fort Scott, where of late 
there had been much bloodshed. x'Vt midnight, on the last day of 
the convention, while the flaring candles in the unfinished church 
where it was held, lit up hundreds of anxious unwearied feces, 
messengers arrived in hot haste from the camp and were instantly 
called upon the stand. They stated that Lane's men were in- 
trenched ready to resist the Border Ruffiaus and, if the Territorial 
authorities attempted to make them lay down their arms before 
their enemies were dispersed, they would fight the United States 
troops. This startling report was received with tremendous ap- 
plause ; and the convention decided not to vote. But the next 
morning the blood of the members had somewhat cooled, and 
prudence prevailed over impulse. 

When the fourth of January came they did vote. And despite 
some glaring frauds. Free Soilers were elected to every office 
under the Lecompton constitution. These newly-chosen officers, 
from governor down, united in a memorial to Congress, protesting 
against the admission of the State under that fraudulent instru- 
ment — perhaps the only instance on record of Am.ericans petition- 
ing themselves out of office. The people of Kansas, also, re- 
pudiated it at the polls by a majority of about eleven thou- 
sand ; (the entire vote of the Territory was thirteen thousand,) 
but the Pro-slavery men had refused to participate in tliis election. 

J. T. Ilcnderson, late editor of the Leavenworth Journal^ had 
been secretary of the convention forming the Lecompton constitu- 
tion. Now he was charged with tampering with the returns 
from Delaware Crossing, by inserting ' 5 ' before ' 35,' and thus 



1858.] A KANSAS SEARCH-WAREANT. 103 

increasing the Pro-slavery vote five hundred. Several Law- 
rence officers, with a volunteer posse, overtook and stopped a 
stage coach in which he was escaping eastward, near Westport, 
Missouri. As they had no legal authority in that State, Hender- 
son drew his revolver and threatened resistance. But Providence 
favored the strongest battalions, and they brought him a prisoner 
to Lawrence. The evidence against him was not altogether con- 
vincing, and after a few days' confinement he escaped. 

Nine years later Colonel William A. Phillips met the former 
fugitive on Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington. As they 
shook hands, the ex-:Zy-z6M/ie-correspondent remarked: 

' AVhen I last saw you, you were clerk of the Lecompton con- 
vention.' 

' Yes,' replied Henderson ; ' but do you see that leg ?' 

Phillips glanced at the shortened limb, maimed by a rebel bul- 
let, and answered : 

' I have nothing more to say ; your apology is ample !' 

In this respect Henderson stood not alone. Hundreds of men 
who took part with the Border Euffians during the Kansas 
troubles, brought forth fruits meet for repentance by fighting in 
the Union armies during our great war. 

The legislature appointed a commission to investigate the elec- 
tion frauds. To do this understandingly the members needed the 
poll-books and returns. L. A. McLean, chief clerk of John Cal- 
houn, (president of the Lecompton convention,) was brought be- 
fore them and swore that the returns were not in Kansas — that he 
had sent them to Calhoun in Missouri. This was believed to be 
false ; and a search-warrant was placed in the hands of Sherifi" 
Samuel Walker. Armed with this document, and with a posse of 
eight men, Walker visited McLean's office in Lecompton, 

' Search wherever you like,' said McLean ; 'you will find noth- 
ing. I sent the returns into Missouri a week ago. 

'We shall see,' persisted Walker : 'Boys, just pitch into that 
woodpile outside the door.' 

^fcLean's cheek blanched as he answered : 

'I forbid it, until I can call a lawyer to examine this warrant.' 

* Call your lawyer responded the sheriff; ' but, meanwhile to save 
time, we will go on with the search.' 



104 HISTORY OF THE MINNEOLA SCHEME. [1858. 

Under the wood-pile, buried in. the earth, was discovered a box 
bearing McLean's name, and labeled ' candles.' Within it were 
the election returns, and they aided materially in ferreting out the 
frauds. McLean escaped punishment by flight, but the ' candle- 
box ' achieved a notoriety that never candle-box won before ; and 
its contents were so luminous that they prevented Congress from 
carrying out Buchanan's recommendation to admit Kansas under 
the Lecompton constitution. 

A year later, after the strife was ended, I was present at a Free 
State jubilee, in Atchison county, which closed its ceremonies by 
burying the Lecompton constitution in a candle-box, under a wood- 
pile. But the Kansans will hardly re-enact the farce annually for 
two hundred years, as the English repeat the drama of Guy 
Fawkes upon each anniversary. 

This winter, for the first time, the legislature was composed of 
Free State men. They proved faithful politically but not pecunia- 
rily. They laid out a town twenty miles south of Lawrence, call, 
ing it Miimeola; passed a charter enabling the company to hold 
two thousand acres of land; and then enacted a law making Min- 
neola the Territorial capital. The members owned the town, and 
by making it the seat of government hoped to make their fortunes 
likewise. 

The people emphatically disapproved of the project. The 
bogus legislature had located the capital at Lecompton in precisely 
the same way ; and the Free State men had always denounced thai 
proceeding as a shameless fraud. 

The journalists in Lawrence held a secret evening meeting to 
consider the movement. The entire Free State press of the Terri- 
tory and nearly all leading journals of the East were repre- 
sented. An informal vote showed that every one present was 
hostile to the Minneola project. A consultation followed as to 
the most effective method of breaking it up. The men of the 
quill agreed to expose its true character ; arranged a line of attack : 
studied the most vulnerable points of the scheme, and determined 
to keep their own counsel. A large amount of Minneola stock 
had been set aside for members of the press. A representative 
offered to present me with a share, but I declined it on the ground 
that I was opposed to the whole movement. He assured me that 



1858.] 'mightier than the sword.' 105 

its acceptance would involve no pledge either direct or implied; 
and I received an elaborate certificate which in flaming colors and 
imposing typography declared me the owner of 'eight lots in the 
town of Minneola, the capital of Kansas Territory, said lots not 
being subject to taxation by the Minneola company .' As I re- 
ceived the document he remarked : 

'We are going to make a great thing out of the town ; in six 
months this share will be worth five hundred dollars. You don't 
believe it? How much do you owe me on our last account?' 

'A hundred and fifteen dollars.' 

' Well, assign this certificate over to me and I will give you a 
receipt in full.' 

I declined the offer ; bidding my interlocutor not to be over 
sanguine but to wait for developments. In a few days the news- 
papers began to be heard from. Minneola was assailed with unspar- 
ing ridicule and execration. The company not knowing whence 
they originated had to fight in the dark. They made a spii'ited con- 
test, however; built great hotels and legislative halls in the em- 
bryo city; plausibly defended their conduct, and fancied that 
hostilities would soon abate. But they did not; and the schemers 
were nearly all ruined politically and pecuniarily. The tliirty- 
nine representatives and their chief clerk received the appella- 
tion of the ' Forty Thieves.' The governor refused to recogi'iize 
the law. Subsequent constitutional conventions and legislatures 
did the same, and the enterprise ended in total failure. Three or 
four of the company sold out during the first excitement and 
pocketed a handsome profit. But the next year I gladly disposed 
of my share for fifteen dollars ; and at present Minneola consists 
of several excellent farms. 

How history repeats itself even in pett}^ details! In 1795 the 
Georgia legislature passed a law selling fort}'- million acres of 
public lands for five hundred thousand dollars. The event 
proved that the members with one solitary exception were inter- 
ested in the purchase: every one receiving money or land for his 
vote. The next legislature, chosen solely on that issue, declared 
the law null and void; ordered it to be expunged from the 
records and burned by the common hangman. Nearly every 
grand jury in the State presented the statute as a robbery and a 



106 GENERAL LANE RECEIVES HIS FRIENDS. [1858. 

fraud. In Congress years later, strenuous efforts were made to 
re-imburse the companies which had since purchased the lands, on 
the ground that they were innocent third parties. The postmas- 
ter-general of the United States who had bought a large interest, 
was at the head of one of these organizations ; but the effort was 
defeated by a majority in the House, headed by John Randolph, 
who opposed the scheme in some of his most bitter speeches. 

During this session of the Kansas legislature. General Lane 
whom President Buchanan had denounced by proclamation as * a 
dangerous and turbulent military leader,' sold a piece of land, and 
came in possession of some money. Lucre was a novelty to the 
grim chieftain, and made him uncomfortable. So he issued 
cards informing his 'dear five hundred friends' that General 
Lane would 'receive' that evening at the representative hall. 

Eight o'clock found the room densely crowded. Hail storms 
of oysters were followed by showers of champagne. On that far 
frontier these unwonted luxuries ripened into their legitimate 
American fruits — enthusiastic toasts and endless speeches. No 
ladies were present, and at last the hilarity became very boister- 
ous. At its greatest hight Lane leaped upon a table, and in 
stentorian tones which penetrated that whole pandemonium, 
announced that Judge Arny had just arrived from Washington 
and would address the meeting. (Enthusiastic and tumultuous 
applause.) The expectant orator, a well-known citizen who bore 
the formidable initials ' W. F. M.,' was profanely entitled ' Alpha- 
betical Arny.' He was a harmless gentleman, with a genius for 
getting his name into print, and a hallucination that he was a can- 
didate f )r the United States Senate. Ordinarily public meetings 
voted him tedious, but the Lecompton constitution was pending; 
railways and telegraphs were as yet unknown, and there was 
deep anxiety to hear the latest news from Washington. 

Arny came forward intensely gratified at his enthusiastic re- 
ception. Just as he uttered ' Fellow Citizens,' an inebriate auditor 
within three feet of him shouted in unearthly tones : 'Arny !' 

Again he essayed to speak, and again that voice thundered 
'■Amy P 

Meanwhile the audience had attained the perfection of 
confusion. Some lay upon the floor; some were stretched upon 



1858.] 



A SPEECH NIPPED IN THE BUD. 



107 



tables ; others lounged over the backs of chairs, and were hurl- 
ing champagne bottles at each other's heads. 

At last through Lane's persuasion comparative order was 
restored. Arny was fall of a very eloquent speech which 
probably he had been rehearsing all the way from Washington. 
Unfortunately it y^axs, hardly adapted to the occasion, for he com- 
menced very solemnly : 

My Fellow Citizens : After spendinp: many months among other and different 
surroundings, it does my heart good to look oaca more upon a scent like this V 




'a scene like this!' 



The assembly had just intelligence enough left to appreciate the 
absurdity of such an exordium. Shouts upon shouts of laughter 
followed, bursting forth afresh whenever the speaker attempted to 
go on. At last he indignantly retired ; and his sonorous oration 
remains unfinished to this day. 

On the eve of adjournment the legislature passed the following, 
with only two or three dissenting voices: 



108 GOVERNORS PLENTY AS BLACKBERRIES. [1858. 

Resolved by the Legislative Assembly of the Territory of Kansas: — 

That we do hereby for the last time solemnly protest against the admission of Kan- 
sas into the Union under the Lecompton constitution. 

That we hurl baclv with scorn the libelous charge contained in the message of the 
president of the United States, to the effect that the freemen of Kansas are a lawless 
people. 

That relying upon the justice of our cause, we do hereby in behalf of the people we 
represent, solemnly pledge to each other and to our friends in Congress and in the 
States our Hves, our fortunes, laid our sacred honor to resist the Lecompton constitu- 
tion and government hij force of arms, if iLtctssary. 

Tliat in tliis perilous hour of our history, we appeal to the civilized world for the 
rectitude of our position, and call upon the friends of freedom everywhere to array 
themselves against this last act of oppiession in the Kansas drama. 

That the governor be requested immediately to transmit certified copies of these 
resolutions to the president, the speaker of tlie House of Representatives, the president 
of the Senate, and our Territorial delegate in the Congress of the United States. 

Thougli a Buchanan democrat, Denver proved more fair and 
just than any previous governor of Kansas. During the rebel- 
lion he was a brigadier-general in the Union service; and the 
thriving metropolis of Colorado still perpetuates his name. 

One of the last deeds of the legislature was a statute authorizing 
a new constitutional convention which in due time formed the 
Leavenworth constitution. There were now four goverments, all 
claiming authority: the Territorial; and the three State govern- 
ments under the Topeka, the Lecompton, and the Leavenworth 
constitutions — all awaiting ratification by Congress. 

Infant constitutions are proverbially weak, and none of these 
three State governments ever gained vitality. Ultimately, Kan- 
sas came into the Union under a fourth constitution, framed at 
Wyandotte. But all these governors, beside three or four 
beheaded executives of the Territory were called by their titles. 
Governors were as plenty as blackberries and quite as cheap. 
Almost every prominent citizen held office in one of the conflict- 
ing organizations, and some in all of them. All public positions 
were sought for with eagerness. As they brought neither power, 
honor, nor emolument, their value was hardly appreciable, unless 
to remind some new Burke what shadows we are and what shad- 
ows we pursue. 



1858.] AN IMAGINARY CITY. 109 



CHAPTER IX. 

In May I went on a tour through Johnson county, from which 
during recent disturbances, several Pro-slavery settlers had been 
driven into Missouri. Reports as to the origin and character of 
the difficulties were as conflicting as the stories of the notorious 
liar described to Dr. Franklin. *A very pleasant fellow ' said his 
eulogist, ' although you must not believe more than half he says.' 

* Exactly,' replied the philosopher ; ' but which half?' 

On my route was the abortive little village of Turpinville, 
which irreverent settlers called ' Turpentine.' It consisted of three 
or four wretched shanties with little trade except in whisky by 
the glass. But recently a town company had been formed, the 
named changed to Johnson City, and a magnificent plan printed, 
with streets, avenues, and public buildings in imposing array. 
One day a wistful young immigrant, carpet-sack in hand, ap- 
proaching the shanties, asked a farmer by the roadside, 

' Can you direct me to Johnson City ?' 

' 0, yes 1 there it is.' 

* Where ?' inquired the stranger, whose eye slowly and blankly 
swept the horizon. 

' There; right before you! ' 

With long-drawn sigh the young man went away sorrowful, for 
he had not great possessions. He had made a small investment in 
the town upon the assurance that it contained thirty-three houses 
with tlnrty more in progress, propert}^ rising and prospects bright. 
lie paid less for his knowledge than most victims, and thereafter 
listened not to the voice of the charmer, charm he never so wisely. 

Just before my trip a marauding Free State band visited a set- 
tler at midnight and inquired his politics. Supposing them to be 
8 



110 



'WHAT ARE YOUR POLITICS?' 



[1858. 



Missourians he declared himself Pro-slavery. They took hia 
horse and departed. Afterward learning that he was a Free 
Soiler, they tied the animal to a tree, where he found it with a 
note pinned to the bridle, containing the wholesome injunction 
never to tell a lie at ninety days, when he could tell the truth for 
cash ! Another unfortunate fellow, just arrived was stopped by 
an armed band who demanded his opinions. He answered : 
' I am a Free State man.' 

His interlocutors, being Missourians, robbed him of his watch 
and money and departed. Before noon he encountered another 
company who made the same inquir}^, but he promptly replied : 
' I am Pro-slavery.' 

This time the marauders, who loudly professed to be Free State 

men, took his horse and 
departed. Just at night 
while journeying on foot, 
he was met by a third 
party who asked the 
old question. The be 
wildered traveler re^ 
plied : 

' What are your poli^ 
tics? It makes no dif- 
ference to me: I agree 
with you perfectly 1' 

He was not further 
molested. 

In a field beside my 
road two men were 
planting corn. Near 
them, hands in pockets, 
lounged a third, tall and 
gaunt, eyes bloodshot, 
nose red, hair long and 
matted, beard ragged, 
nnd one cheek distended by a great roll of tobacco. He inquired 
gruffly : 

' Whar are yer from, stranger ?' 




t 



'old kaintuck.' 



1858.] FREAKS OF POLITICAL HIGHWAYMEN. Ill 

' Ohio. Where are you from ?' 

' Old Kaintuck. I reckon thar'll be a smart fight right soon ; 
and like to know whar every man hails from.' 

' Did the fight begin the other night at your neighbor's who 
was robbed and warned out of the country ?' 

'No sir; them fellers was just a pack of d — d thieves. They 
did'nt care any thing about politics — only wanted old Evans's 
money.' 

' Did they molest you ?' 

'Nary time. They knew better. I have got twelve Missis- 
sippi rifles, seven bowie knives, and six revolvers up in my house. 
Six of us stops thar, and if they come near us we will kill every 
mother's son of them, by — ! I have got ten niggers in old 
Kaintuck ; did'nt dar bring them here ; will sell them next year, 
and hire poor white men. If they won't let me have black ser- 
vants, I will have white ones, by — !' 

I afterward learned that the marauders did visit this Bombastes 
Furioso only a few nights before, and he proved the meekest of 
non-resistants, begging them to spare his life, and a little of his 
whisky. 

I found Olathe, the county seat, under military guard ; and 
public sentiment throughout the county universal against the rob' 
bers, who under political pretexts, were plundering promis- 
cuously. Before many weeks the citizens effectually suppressed 
them. 

Eeturning, I took the Lawrence road, and at nine in the eve- 
ning sought lodging in a little white cottage, to find it occupied 
by a brawny Indian. He answered my greeting: 

' Umph ! what um want?' 

' Want to stop over night. Where ?' 

His long, bony finger pointed down the road, and he muttered : 

' Um — good woman — big house.' 

'How for?' 

' Um— mile— two mile— half !' 

The next building was a log-house. After I had tapped several 
times upon its door an anxious voice from within asked: 

'Who's thar?' 

'A stranger. Can you keep me to-night ?' 



112 



NOT MUCH KOOJU: LEFT. 



[1858. 



'Are you alone?' 

'All alone.' 

A pair of eyes peered through the crack to reconnoiter ; then 

a whole head 
was visible, and 
the door slowly 
opened. 

'Come in stran- 
ger. Sorry to 
keep you wait- 
ing, but thar's 
so many gangs 
prowling the 
country that we 
have to be cau- 
tious at night.' 

The only room 
of the little 
cabin contained 
three beds, all 
filled with slum- 
berers. Despair- 
ingly asked I: 
Could they ac- 
commodate me 
for the night ? 
The prairie pa- 
triarch, whose unkempt head loomed up like a bundle of hay 
above his long night-shirt, replied : 

' I wish I mought, but the fact is, stranger, lue are about full 

here! However, thar's the Widow C , half a mile from here, 

who always keeps travelers.' 

To the Widow C 's I rode, and tapped on the door. A 

masculine voice promptly replied : 

' Halloa ! who is it !' 

'A traveler : can you lodge me ?' 

*I reckon,' was the terse reply. 

Eureka ! I had found it. I was placed in the old house hard 




'about full here. 



1858.] AN EXCITEMENT AT LAWRENCE. 113 

by, where I slept refreshingly in one bed, while a hen with a 
brood of chickens occupied another. 

Breakfast proved the widow a model of cookery, and her con- 
versation a marvel of loquacity. Then I went on my way re- 
joicing, riding toward Lawrence in the society of a drunken In- 
dian, who by the slipping of his saddle-girth was three times 
thrown head-foremost on the ground while bis horse was at full 
gallop, and yet did not break his worthless neck. 

On Thursday, June third, I was in the office of the Lawrence 
Herald of Freedom, when a boy came in with the report : 

' There has just been a fight up town.' 

' This was such an every-day affair that I did not look up from my 
writing. A moment afterward another messenger entered and said ; 

' There's a man killed.' 

Even this excited little attention in those times of violence. 
But suddenly a voice was heard from the street : 

'Jim Lane has killed Gains Jenkins, and a mob has gathered 
around his house to hang him.' 

There was no more indifference ; the unarmed ran for rcA^olvers ; 
and we all hastened to Lane's house half a mile away. Around it 
were two or three hundred excited men, a few proposing to lynch 
Lane, but the majority declaring that he should be tried by due 
course of law. Among the former was the notorious ex -Sheriff" 
Jones, who had led the Border Euffian horde in sacking Lawrence 
two years earlier. During the comparative quiet which now pre- 
vailed, he frequently visited the city. In the midst of his loud 
talk, sheriff Samuel Walker quietly remarked : 

'Look here, Jones; be careful how you recommend hanging. 
These people are a good deal excited already, and if they hang 
anybody, will be very likely to begin with youP 

The visitor instantly apologized for his intrusion into Lawrence 
affairs, and took the first stage for Lecompton. 

I found General Lane upon a bed in his house, crippled by a 
pistol shot in the knee, and surrounded by his wife and children, 
all in tears. 

At the residence of Jenkins only a few yards away, lay the 
bloody corpse of the husband and father, while the air rung with 
shrieks from the widow and the fatherless. 



lU JENKINS KILLED BY GENERAL LANE [1858. 

Sheriff Walker at once took Lane into custody, and the excite- 
ment soon subsided. 

Lane and Jenkins both lived upon a contested ' claim ' worth 
from ten to fifteen thousand dollars. Each insisted that he was 
the rightful owner, and for months the title had been in litigation 
at Washington. Jenkins, brave and impetuous, was widely 
known, having held a colonel's position in the Free State army, 
and been one of the famous treason prisoners in 1856. He 
seemed to believe that if he could drive Lane from the premises, 
it would improve his prospect of gaining the suit. He therefore 
made many threats, and at last stimulated by Lane's political 
rivals and enemies, proceeded to violence. 

For months Lane had remained in undisputed possession of the 
house he occupied. Within its inclosure was a well from which 
the family of Jenkins obtained water. As the quarrel progressed, 
Lane ordered Jenkins off the premises. Jenkins persisted, cut 
down the fence, and forced open the cover of the well. Lane 
mended both breaches, and messages of defiance passed between 
the parties. Jenkins with three armed companions again cut 
down the fence, and started toward the well. Lane, gun in hand, 
standing near his house, warned them off, but they continued to 
approach menacingly. Then he fired, killing Jenkins instantly. 
The Jenkins party answered with two or three revolver shots, one 
of which entered Lane's knee. 

Though justifiable by no code of sound morals. Lane did ex- 
actly what two out of three frontier settlers would have done 
under the circumstances. The case was fully investigated by a 
board of magistrates, who unanimously discharged him; and the 
grand jury refused to find a bill against him. 

For months afterward he took no part in public affairs. He 
rejoined the Methodist church from which he had long been sus- 
pended, and he seldom appeared in public. But the people par- 
do»ed the homicide, and when Kansas was admitted to the 
Union, elected him to represent them in the Senate of the United 
States. For six years he remained in that high office; but as I 
write these pages, intelligence comes of his death by his own 
hand. Following Andrew Johnson's defection from the republi- 
can party which elected him, Lane had received unmistakable 



1858.] 



AN ADVENTUROUS CATFISH. 



115 



evidences of the indignant di.sapproval of his constituents. It was 
believed too, that he feared developments about to be made, 
proving him in league with a band of Kansas cormorants who 
were despoiling the public treasury through Indian contracts. 
For some weeks he showed signs of insanity and at last, near 
Leavenworth, fired the shot which proved fatal in a few days. 
Poor Lane! Lender all his monstrous defects must have been 
some goodness, or he had never so gained and held the attach- 
ment of pure, earnest men. Through many dark, years he stood 
true to the Free State cause and he organized the first regiment 
of negro troops in our great war. His life was very turbulent; 
now he sleeps in peace among the green prairies of the young 
State he struggled so long to mold. 

The Kansas river, six hundred miles in length, was at first be- 
lieved navigable from its mouth to Lawrence through the year, 
and to Fort Riley during the winter months. But it proved 
adapted only to that traditional steamer which could run 
wherever there was a heavy dew. In 1857 a small boat drawing 
but fourteen inches 
was advertised to 
ply semi-weekly be- 
tween Kansas City 
and Lawrence. Her 
first trip occupied ten 
days ; her second, 
five months. She 
spent the entire sum- 
mer among the sand- 
bars. 

During the excess- 
ive drowth, a huge 
cat-fish, (identical in 
appearance with the 
New England horned 
pout, which in its na- 
tive streams seldom 
reaches the weight of one pound,) came swimming down the river. 
Just opposite Lecompton, the luckless voyager struck a sand-bar 



,t^ 










NAVIGATION' OF THE KANSAS RIVEIl. 



116 THE RESULT OF A MIS-STEP. [1858. 

on wbicli be landed high and dry. He was captured by band, 
and found to weigh one hundred and seventeen pounds. There 
was one afterward caught in the Missouri, weighing one hundred 
and sixty pounds. But the former demonstrated that the Kansas 
is not navigable for catfish in low water. In 1858 however, 
there was an unprecedented freshet, and a little steamer drawing 
eighteen inches, plied upon the river with comparative success. 
During the same season, a paity of fifteen men went safely down 
the great rivers from St, Joseph, Missouri, to New Orleans in a 
rough flat-boat, propelled by side wheels driven by cranks ; and 
another party floated from Omaha to Leavenworth in a skiff. 

Eastern people know nothing of mud. In Leavenworth, on 
the river bank where pedestrians were wallowing and drays 
plowing through the mire, which dropped in streams from the 
wheels and horses' feet, I saw a daintily dressed lady and gentle- 
man attempting to walk the plank from a steamboat to the land. 
It proved as perilous as Mohammed's single hair over the bottom- 
less gulf, which formed the bridge to Paradise. When half way 
to the shore they both slipped off and fell four or five feet into the 
mud-jelly and there rolled over. Each arose a pillar of mud, a 
modern edition of Lot's wife. They were a shade darker than the 
Missouri itself which early explorers called ' the Yellow River ' as 
habitually as Roman poets sung of the yellow Tiber. Old Pactol us, 
where sluice-mining doubtless originated, was fabled to run itself in 
golden sands. Were the Missouri's discoloring element of the 
same material, it would be as priceless as those molten streams 
which pour from the furnaces in our public mints. 

The 19th of May is memorable for the most revolting deed in 
the blood-stained history of Kansas, It was done upon the bank 
of the Marais des Cygnes (marsh of the swans) river, sixty 
miles southeast of Lawrence, and three west of the Missouri line. 
There eleven quiet unoflending citizens, who had never partici- 
pated in the troubles, were dragged from their farms and work- 
shops and shot down in cold blood — five of them cruelly murdered 
for the crime of holding Free State sentiments. The butchers 
were seventeen Missouriansand eight Kansans, led by two wretches, 

Charles Hamilton and Brockett, They found nearly all 

their victims unprepared and unresisting. But one settler named 



i 



''1^^ 



■'Ifelaii^ 




^^ M^iVlfl fVlr-i., 



1858.] BRAVE FATHER AND BRAVE SON. 117 

Snyder successfully repelled them. Hamilton and six of his band 
rode up to the blacksmith shop in which Snyder was working 
and shouted : 

' Hallo, there !' 

Snyder, who had acquired considerable repute for fearlessness, 
stepped out of doors to find himself confronted by seven armed 
men. 

^Kow, by G — , sir,' exclaimed Hamilton, 'you are my prisoner !' 

Snyder, if unlike the historic Pickens of South Carolina, born 
insensible to fear, was at least difficult to intimidate. He replied : 

* Not yet !' 

Then springing back into the shop he seized a shot gun, 
and ordered his boy of seventeen to run to the house after 
his gun. The dwelling was several rods distant, up a steep bank, 
entirely open to the fire of the ruffians. The son replied : 

' Why, father, they will kill me.' 

* Don't be afraid ; I'll protect you.' 

The young Vulcan started on a brisk run. 

' Stop !' commanded Hamilton, ' or we'll shoot you down in your 
tracks.' 

'Go on!' thundered the father, with his gun pointing at them ; 
'I'll kill the first man who takes aim at you. ' 

Snyder was so prompt that not one of the band raised his rifle 
till the boy had reached the house ; then Hamilton suddenly fired 
at Snyder bat overshot. The dauntless blacksmith immediately 
replied with his gun but Hamilton dropped unharmed behind his 
horse, though the animal fell dead. 

Snj^der flew back into the shop, reloaded and fired, wounding 
one of the assailants, who now began to retreat ; then he also ran 
for the house. Several shots were fired after him and one took 
effect in his hip. He dropped behind the fence and reloaded, 
while the ruffians, supposing him disabled, once more approached. 
He unexpectedly rose up and again fired among them. 

By this time the boy came out with his gun, and both father 
and son took shelter in a little grove near by and continued to fire 
briskl3\ Like all men who despise their lives they proved masters 
of the situation, and the baffled and exasperated murderers retired 
to join their companions. 



118 A MOST INHUMAN MASSACRE. [1858. 

The eleven captives already collected were taken into a deep 
ravine and formed into a line a few yards in front of the horse* 
men, Hamilton briefly gave the commands: 

' Present arms. Fire.' 

Twenty-five rifles and revolvers answered. Every prisoner fell, 
Four were killed and all but one of the rest wounded. The mur- 
derers slowly galloped away but in a few moments three returning 
kicked and rolled over the bodies to see if they were dead. As 
one appeared onl}^ slightly wounded, one of the miscreants placed 
his revolver to his ear and fired remarking : 

' I have always found this a certain shot.' 

The ruffians then departed leaving five men dead, and six lying 
beside them in extremest terror. Of the killed all were estimable 
citizens and all but one married. One of the survivors was not 
wounded but shrewdly fell with the rest, and thus escaped. 

The massacre, unparalleled upon American soil, sent a shudder 
of horror through the North. A few partisans sought to palliate 
it on the ground that Pro-slavery settlers also had been brutally 
murdered ; but Hamilton and his men bearing the brand of Cain, 
became fugitives and vagabonds upon the earth. Whittier's muse, 
never silent when freedom was wounded, sent forth the strain : 

LE MARAIS DU CTGNB. 

A blush as of roses 

Where rose never grew; — 
Great dropslin the bunch-grass, 

But not of the dew ; — 
A taint in the sweet air 

For wild bees to shun — 
A stain that sliall never 

Bleach out iu tlie sun 

From the hearths of their cabins, 

The fields of their com, 
Unwarned and unweaponed, 

The victims were torn, 
By the whirlwind of murder 

Swooped up and swept on 
To the low, reed}- fen-lands, 

The Marsh of the Swan. 



« 



1858.] LE MARAIS DU CYGNE. 119 

"With a vain plea for mercy, 

No stout kuee was crooked ; 
In the mouths of the rifles 

Right manly they looked. 
How paled the May sunshine, 

Green Marais du Cj'gne, 
"When the death-smoke blew over 

Thy lonely ravine 1 

• 

In the homos of tlieir rearing, 

Tet warm with their lives, 
Ye wait the dead only, 

Poor children and wives I 
Put out the red Ibrge-fire, 

The smitli sliall not come ; 
Unyoke the brown oxen. 

The plowman lies dumb. 

Strong man of the prairies, 

Mourn bitter and wild I 
Wail, desolate woman ! 

Weep, fatherless child i 
But the grain of God springs up 

From ashes beneath. 
And the crown of his harvest 

Is Ufe out of death. 

On the lintels of Kansas 

That blood shall not dry ; 
Henceforth the Bad Angel 

Shall harmless go by. 
Henceforth to the sunset. 

Unchecked on her way, 
Shall Liberty follow 

The march of the day. 



120 A PARTY OF PEACE-MAKERS. [1858 



CHAPTER X. 

The Marais des Cjgnes massacre re-lighted tlie flames of civil 
war in Linn, Lykins, (now Miami,) and Bourbon, all southeastern 
counties of Kansas, bordering upon Missouri. In Linn, James 
Montgomery, a Free State guerrilla leader with many adherents, 
drove out every obnoxious Pro-slavery settler. Several times he 
crossed the line into Bourbon, and attacked Fort Scott, the couiity 
seat. This Border Ruffian stronghold (Bourbon had not yet been 
reclaimed to Free State rule) contained the United States land 
office and was defended by Federal troops. Twice the soldiers 
endeavored to arrest Montgomery ; but he sturdily resisted and put 
them to flight. All along the border there was no safety for life 
or property except in the strong arm of violence; and at the dis- 
tance of fifty miles it was difficult to determine whether Mont- 
gomery's men were defending their hearths and making legitimate 
reprisals or .shedding blood wantonly. 

Governor Denver and one of his aids on behalf of the Pro- 
slavery party, accompanied by Governor Robinson, Judge John 
W. Wright and other prominent Free State citizens, made a tour 
through the disturbed regions endeavoring to promote peace. 
With Lewis N. Tappan, Edmund Babb, and other correspondents, 
I accompanied these peace commissioners. 

June 9. — Left Lawrence in a drenching rain, riding over a great 
expanse of green, smiling with countless flowers. Little mounds, 
five or six inches high, abound, thrown up by the gopher in dig- 
ging his hole. The rosin-weed or compass-plant is also plentiful, 
its leaves always pointing north and south. Both the mounds and 
the plant are unfailing indications of rich soil. 

Beyond the Waukarusa we found one solitary ' black-jack ' (oak.) 



1858.] BEFORE A COMFORTABLE FIRE. 121 

In Missouri there is a flourishing town named Lone Jack from a 
tree of this species whose pleasant shade and a cool spring at its 
roots, made it a favorite camping-place for early travelers. 

At night we sought refuge from a thunder storm in the hospi- 
table log house of Ottawa Jones, a Pottawatomie half-breed, edu- 
cated and bearing no appearance of Indian extraction. His white 
wife was a native of Maine. Both had been adopted into the 
Ottawa tribe, and he was a chief of the band. For his Free State 
sympathies the Border Euffians had burned his house, whose black- 
ened ruins were standing a few yards from the present dwelling. 

June 10. — Still raining. "With difficulty we crossed the lai'ge 
stream, in Missouri called the Osage, and in Kansas the Marais des 
Cygnes. The former is from a tribe of Indians along tlie bank, 
• — the latter was given by early French explorers. Passed beds of 
the wild onion many acres in extent. 'Chicago' is an Indian name 
for this plant. Stopped to ask about roads at a white fiirm house 
where we found water a foot deep on the dirt floor, and two for- 
lorn bachelors who assured us that they were compelled to tie 
down their cooking stove to keep it from floating off; and that 
they slept very comfortably at night sailing about the room upon 
a raft ! 

In Franklin county we halted at Ohio City, containing four or 
five houses. In old England only cathedral towns are cities ; in 
Kew England only incorporated towns ; but in the ambitious West 
any thing is a city from a board-pile upward. 

Ohio City boasted a hotel where we spent the night, as effectually 
bound by the water as was Victor Hugo's pioneer steamer Du- 
rande by the the rocks upon which it perched high and drj-. "VYe 
could not go forward, for the creeks were impassable; we could 
not turn back for the Marais des Cygnes, swollen since we crossed, 
was no longer fordable. So we spent the evening drjnng before 
the tavern fire, while our landlord gave his loquacity free course 
to run and be glorified, — 

' And skilled in legendary lore, 
The lingering hours beguiled.' 

From him we learned that, a few days before, a constable with 
four assistants attempted to take a yoke of oxen and a wagon 



122 



A NIGHT AT OSAWATTOMIE. 



[1858. 



from a neighboring farmer on an execution. The man offered no 
resistance, but his wife first gave the officer a ' piece of her mind,' 
and then drove the entire posse from the premises with a Colt's 
revolver. It was one woman against the Territory of Kansas, and 
that woman triumphed. 

June 11. — Still raining. While fording the first creek Gover- 
nor Robinson's whifiletree broke, and the horses sprang to the 
shore leaving his vehicle in the middle of the stream, The gov- 
ernor leaped into the current and bore Judge Wright upon hi's 
back to the 
bank amid 
shouts of 
laughter from 
the other car- 
riages. After 
all the jests 
about Kansas 
governors sel- 




TlIE EXECUTIVE SirPOKTI^G THE JUDICIARY. 



dom being tee- 
totalers, and 
getting into 
hot water of- 
tener than 
cold, and 

the execu- 
tive support- 
ing the judi- 
ciary, had 

been duly delivered, and the fracture repaired with ropes, we con- 
tinued on to Osawattomie where we halted for the night. 

In 1856, after a gallant defense by old John Brown and thirty 
men, this town was burned to the ground by three hundred Mis,- 
sourians; but it had sprung up again, and now contained a hun- 
dred houses. Brown was now absent from the Territory, but we 
heard many legends of the old hero and his seven sons, all of 
whom handled their Sharpe's rifles with fearlessness and accuracy, 
and constituted quite a little army. 

A Pro-slavery resident was popularly known as ' Bogus Wil- 



1858.] BOTH SIDES OF THE QUESTION. 123 

liams' to distinguish him from a Free State namesake who did 
not recognize the bogus laws. The Osawattomites would have 
appreciated the confusion of the French critic who described Wil- 
liam Shakespeare as 'the divine WilUanis!' Before our arrival 
some of Montgomery's men had robbed Williams the spurious, and 
warned him to leave the Territory. But Montgomery, learning 
that their victim was a peaceful citizen who had no affiliation with 
murderers like Hamilton and Brockett, restored the propei'ty and 
changed his followers to molest no man whose acts were not ob- 

O 

noxious, for opinion's sake. 

Of (jourse the arrival of our party was the signal for a meeting. 
Tlie expectant citizens gathered in fi-ont of the hotel and demanded 
speeches. The two governors and Judge Wright gratified them, 
indulging in some denunciations of lawlessness in general and of 
Montgomery in particular. 

This was warring upon the Douglas in his native highlands. 
Charles Foster, a resident next called out, defended the partisan 
leader and was vociferously applauded. 

Our landlady — from Ohio, — admitted us to her confidences to 
the extent of assuring us that her husband had been a democnit; 
but the burning of the town by the Border Euffians, had singed his 
pockets, and transformed him into a radical abolitionist. For her 
own part she declared herself 'a Montgomery man,' and expressed 
the mild hope that Governor Denver might be drowned if he 
should attempt to harm that popular chieftain. 

Jane 12. — While we were constructing a raft of planks and 
skiffs for crossing the swollen Pcjttawatomie, Pat Devlin, a young 
Irishman, in the a])parent costume of a model artiste, holding his 
clothing and Sharpe's rifle high above his head, swam his fine 
gray horse across the stream. Then he re-dressed, gave a vig- 
orous wlioop and galloped out of sight. 

Wm. Uairgrove, a Georgian fifty-eight years of age returning 
homeward, has accompanied us from Lawrence. He carries in his 
breast four bullets received from Hamilton's party in the Marais 
des Cygnes massacre. His beard is long and grizzly, for he has 
not shaved since the day of the tragedy, and swears that he never 
will until all the criminals are under the sod. 

Hamilton who led the cut-throats is also a Georgian, and Hair- 



124 A SIMPLE, TOUCHING STORY. [1858. 

grove once aided in electing his father to the legislature of that 
State. 

Most of the farmers along our road, are working in the fields 
witli their rifles near them and scouts posted on the roads. Thej 
all defend Montgomery. 

At night in a drenching rain we reached Moneka. While I 
was drying my dripping garments before the kitchen fire, a little 
girl of five or six years with eyes like sunbeams, and a shower 
of golden ringlets, was playing beside me. She was soon won 
to a seat on my knee and began to prattle freely of her play- 
things, her playfellows, and the other treasures of childhood. 

Would I take her to ride in my buggy ? 

Yes, if she would go home with me. 

' 0, I can't ; I can't leave my ma.' 

* Why not?' 

' Because she is alone — all alone.' 

'Where is 3'Our father?' 

' My pa's dead. The Missourians killed him.' 

'Why did they kill him?' 

' Because they were bad men and he wasn't a Missourian. They 
came to our house and took him away, and shot him dead. Was'nt 
that too bad? I can't go home with you, because I'm afraid the 
Missourians will come and get my ma. You don't think they'll 
kill hei% too, do you?' 

The little prattler was indeed the child of one of the butchered 
citizens. Her mother had taken temporary refuge in the hotel. 
She was a modest, pleasing young woman, and told her sad story 
very artlessly : 

' My husband was sitting in the house with me, when we saw 
the murderers coming. I begged him to go away where they 
could not find him; for after the threats which had been made, I 
feared they would kill him. But he was very firm, and would not 
go. lie had done nothing he said, that he should sneak off and 
hide like a dog ; if he was to die, he would stay and die like a 
man. * * * "^e were poor, but we were living very happily 
together on our claim. When I felt lonely, I used to take my 
work out and remain with my husband in the field. Now the 
world is all dark, and I have nobody to go to for sympathy or 
advice.' 



1858.] 



THE GREAT GUERRILLA CHIEFTAIN, 



125 



June 13. — Found all the settlers justifying the ' Jay hawkers,' a 
name universally applied to Montgomery's men, from the celerity 
of their movements and their habit of suddenly pouncing upon 
an enemy. Nearly all the citizens under arms, to defend their 
homes and if possible ferret out and punish the Marais des Cyg- 
nes murderers. They were commanded by E. B. Mitchell, then a 
conservative member of the Kansas legislature; afterward a 
major general in the Union army. Their search was unsuccessful ; 
for the cut-throats had fled to Arizona and the Indian country. 

Of course in the eye of the law Montgomery was a criminal 
and a freebooter. At breakfast this morning I asked Mitchell, 

'Will Montgomery show himself now the governor is herei" 

' No ; he is too wary for that.' 

But just as we were starting, the famed leader accompanied by 
only two men rode up and halted within a few feet of our carriage. 
Here he was at last — the guerrilla chieftain, whose name was in 
every man's mouth throughout Kansas and the neighboring States. 
He was about forty years old, 
lightly built, with thin Eoman 
nose, light blue eyes and straight 
hair, then parting in the middle, 
which gave him a certain resem- 
blance to John C. Fremont. The 
people greeted him with cheers, 
and one citizen remarked to our 
party : 

'Now you can judge of the 
estimation in which we hold Mont- 
gomery. Even the conservative 
Free State men, who censured him 
before the massacre, now regard 

him as their protector and champion. Were any attempt made to 
arrest him, the entire population of the county would resist it. 

"When we started on, Montgomery rode beside our carriage for 

several miles, talking modestly but freely in a voice as low and 

musical as that for which Alexander Pope was termed ' the little 

nightingale.' He was a native of Kentucky, where he had been 

a school-teacher and an exhorter in the Methodist church. He 
9 




JAMES MONTGOMERY. 



126 ONE OF HIS DEVOTED ADHERENTS. [1858. 

was a peculiarly entertaining conversationalist and seemed more 
familiar with the geology of Kansas than any other man I had 
met. To our questions about his own exploits, he replied diffi- 
dently that he had been compelled to organize a guerilla company 
to protect himself and his neighbors. He continued : 

'Now a guerrilla company, to be effective, must be self-sustain- 
ing — must subsist on the enemy. Therefore we feed ourselves at 
Pro-slavery larders and our horses at Pro-slavery corn-cribs.' 

To our queries about his residence, he answered : 

*I live with my wife and five children, in a very good log house. 
I did'nt erect it myself ; a gentleman from Missouri built it; but 
soon after, he was unexpectedly compelled to leave the country, 
and so I have taken possession until he returns.' 

"Which meant that he had driven out some Pro-slaver}' citizen 
and occupied his dwelling. It was safe to presume that the 
former occupant would never come back. 

His daring was beyond question and no one doubted his purity 
from mercenary motives. He was that most formidable of char- 
acters : a praying fighter. He held daily religious worship in his 
family and was reported very amiable and just in private life» 
Quiet, modest and silver-tongued, he was indeed 

' The mildept-mannered man 
That ever scuttled ship or cut a throat.' 

But his eye had the uneasy glare peculiar to hunted men, and his 
hollow laugh aroused the constant and unpleasant suggestion of a 
mind diseased. 

Beside him rode Pat Devlin, the young Irishman who crossed 
the creek yesterday in such breathless haste. He had heard a re- 
port that Governor Denver was about to arrest Montgomery and 
hastened on to give him warning. Devlin was one of his follow- 
ers, actuated partly by hatred of the Border Rufiians, partly by na- 
tive recklessness. In a future chapter we shall see how this 
pitcher which went often to the well was at last broken. 

During the day we were stopped by scouts again and again. 
We arrived at Lebanon where Governor Denver addressed the 
people, urging them to settle all future difficulties through the 
ballot-box and courts. He left instantly after speaking and then 



1858.] 'catching a tartar' illustrated. 127 

Montgomery, called out by the meeting, promised that he would 
make no trouble if the courts were purified and the laws justly 
administered. 

Finding the Marmaton dangerous to ford, we left our horses 
and vehicles on the north bank and crossed in a skiff to Fort 
Scott, the county seat of Bourbon. This was originally a military 
post to guard the Missouri frontier, but the Government recently 
abandoned it and sold the buildings to private parties. Now it is 
the most important town in southern Kansas. The old barracks 
with their ample windows, deep porticoes, fronting the public 
square, and stately shade trees, give it an air of age and comfort, 
very unusual upon the frontier. 

We find all business suspended on account of the troubles. 
In this most violent Pro-slavery settlement, even the courts of jus- 
tice have long been controlled by criminals and desperadoes who 
have used them to gratify political revenge, and frequently called 
out United States troops to enforce their processes. Here Brock- 
ett and several of the other Marais des Cygnes murderers resided, 
until their last atrocious deed compelled them to fly from the 
Territory. 

^[ontgomery lives twenty miles distant. For months the Bor- 
der Ruffian authorities have held processes for his arrest and fre- 
quently called out a large force of Federal dragoons to arrest 
liim. Bat only a few nights ago he attacked the town, ridtlled 
the principal buildings with rifle-balls, and attempted to burn 
them. But a violent rain set in extmo-uishinsi; the flames, and the 
little band withdrew unmolested, though their assault was made 
within fifty yards of an encampment of three hundred United 
States troops, supported by a section of artillery. 

Several months ago, the county prosecuting attorney mounted 
upon a showy white liorse, led a posse for Montgomery's arrest. 
The guerrilla leader, not only routed the party, Init like a new 
Thomas a Becket, captured the officer's steed and has been riding 
it ever since. Indeed he was mounted upon it yesterday while 
accompanying our party. Later the county sheriff with a large 
force likewise went out to arrest the great guerrilla, the ollicer 
riding a fine spotted mule. Montgomery's rifles easily dispersed 
this second party. The sheriff was glad to find his way back on 



128 A MOMENT OF EXCITEMENT. [1858. 

foot ; and the partisan captain presented the captured mule to one 
of his lieutenants, who still retains it as a trophy. 

This afternoon, a peace convention of three hundred was held 
on the public square. Governor Denver, Governor Eobinson and 
J udge Wright addressed it from the hotel piazza, urging honest 
men of both parties to unite hereafter in putting down violence 
and sustaining the legal administration of justice. They were fol- 
lowed by Epaphroditus Eansom, a tall, herculean, gray-haired ex- 
governor of Michigan, who under appointment of President Bu- 
chanan now holds a lucrative position in the United States land 
office here. Eansom began moderately, but soon plunged into a 
violent Pro-slavery address. Among other intemperate state- 
ments, he declared that Free State men had originat(;d the difficult- 
ies and committed all the outrages. Judge Wright of our party, 
as old as Eansom and quite as hot-blooded, instantly sprang up 
in front of the speaker and exclaimed : 

'It is false, sir, totally false!' 

Eansom retorted by giving him the lie; and for a few seconds 
the two aged men faced each other defiantly. 

From the speakers' stand, I glanced down upon the assemblage. 
Instinctively, as by the law of gravitation, the auditors fell apart 
into two bodies, separated only by a space of eight or ten feet. 
For an instant, there was breathless silence, then the air was rent 
with the shouts : 

' It's true !' ' It's false !' ' It's a d— d lie !' 

A few raised their rifles, and shot guns. The rest drew revol- 
vers from their belts, and on every side was heard the sharp click, 
click, click of the cocking weapons. 

The speakers' platform, containing thirty or forty persons of 
both parties, presented a similar scene. Eevolvers were drawn, 
threats exchanged, and Governor Eobinson, the mildest of con- 
servatives, stood close behind Eansom with clinched fists ready to 
hurl him down the steps the moment hostilities should begin. 
All this occurred almost in the twinkling of an eye ; and a bloody 
fight seemed inevitable. But just at this moment Governor Den- 
ver who was in the hotel parlor conversmg with a party of ladies, 
lieard the tumult, rushed out, sprang between Eansom and 
Wright and commanded the peace. ^ 



1858.] UNITING TO KEEP THE PEACE. 129 

' Fellow citizens,' said he, ' is (Ids the way to reconciliation ? 
How can order be restored if all these old sores are to be re-opened.' 
Both these gentlemen are my seniors but I must censure them. 
They should not let passion run away with reason. We came to 
promote harmony ; let us have no more of these disgraceful scenes.' 

This restored quiet; there were apologies and conciliatory 
speeches and then the meeting adjourned. 

June 15. — Governor Denver has removed the obnoxious county 
officers, and appointed good unpartisan citizens to fill their places. 

To-day both parties signed a written agreement hereafter to 
avoid intemperate language, obey the laws and discountenance 
violence. Both seem thoroughly weary of the reign of disorder. 

June 16. — Left Fort Scott this morning, going north within two 
or three miles of the Missouri line. The country is dotted with 
conical mounds from fifty to a hundred feet high. Nearly all the 
houses are deserted. At one cabin I found a young Scotch couple 
surrounded by evidences of their national industry and thrift. 
Nearly all their neighbors had been frightened away. The girlish 
wife had come alone from the far Highlands, across the sea and 
over the land, to fulfill her plighted troth ; for her lover emigrated 
five years before her. 

The next occupied house had but one apartment, and contained 
only an old German who had apparently forgotten his own lan- 
guage and never learned any other. Sitting upon a box he was 
bathing a sore knee from a tin cup. Our colloquy was brief: 

' A warm day, sir.' 

' Ya, saer varm.' 

' Do you live here all alone ?' 

'Ya, mein herr.' 

* Where is your family. 

*Ah, mein vife dead. Mein sons go off, get claims.' 

'Are you not afraid of the Missourians?' 

'Oh!' (shrugging his shoulders,) 'Misshourian bad man — kill 
Free-shlave man. I shtop door — fasten,' (pointing to the door-bar,) 
'let him nicht in. H he come, den,' (showing his double-bar> 
reled gun,) ' I shoot I' 

' Good ! Now father Gambrinus have you any cool water?' 

'Vater? Oh, ya.' 



130 AN ADDKESS BY MONTGOMERY. [1858 

And the ancient Teuton deliberately emptied his cup, filled it 
from a bucket and otfered us a draught ! We adjourned our thirst 
to the next brook, and bade him good morning. 

Beyond, two sentinels armed with Sharpe's rifles, stopped us, 
but learning that we were friends, took us to the Free State camp 
of twentv-five men whose scouts were out for miles north and 
south, guarding the Missouri line. We ci'ossed the Marais des 
Cygnes and spent the night at 'Trading Post,' a little cluster of 
houses, two miles from the nineteenth-of-May tragedy. 

June 17. — This morning we visited the scene of the massacre, 
finding nearly all houses in the vicinity deserted. Our old friend, 
Mr. llairgrove, one of the fortunate who escaped with wounds, 
showed us the several dwellings from which the victims were 
taken and the dark ravine where the foul murder was committed. 
We also visited the rough little shop where the blacksmith, Sny- 
der, made such gallant resistance. In the afternoon, a meeting of 
several hundred settlers was addressed by Denver, Eobinson, 
Wright and Montgomery. Denver appointed new township offi- 
cers and both parties signetl a pledge similar to that given ai Fort 
Scott. Montgomery promised, if the agreement now made were 
kept, to lay down his arms, and devote himself to his cattle and 
corn-fields. His remarks were manly and eloquent. He said : 

' I have accepted the olive branch. To-day I come from home 
without my rifle — the first time for months. I have been charged 
with foulest crimes ; but you all know^ my acts. I have done noth- 
ing under a bushel. If any man asserts that I have disturbed one 
peaceable citizen, I deny the charge and defy the proof If any as- 
sert that I have abused or insulted a woman, I deny the charge and 
defy the proof I liave said I never would be tried at Fort Scott, 
and I never will. No Free State man could hope for justice there. 
But I trust we are now to have honest courts in our own county. 
If so, I pledge my honor to answer promptly any indictment. I 
will obey every legal process; stand my trial and abide the issue.' 

We returned to Lawrence, and for a few months there was quiet 
in southeastern Kansas, Montgomery became a peaceful citizen, 
III 1S62, I met him again — serving as colonel of a Kansas regi- 
ment in the Union army. His eye had become healthy, and he 
had lost his hollow jarring laugh. 



1858.] FEMININE SMOKERS OF TOBACCO. 131 



CHAPTER XI. 

I ' ASSISTED ' at a rural celebration of the Fourth of July in the 
village of Monrovia, Atchison county. The adjacent settlers 
came thronging in on horseback, on foot, and in heavy ox-wagons, 
sitting upon rush-bottomed chairs. One family even rode triumph- 
antly on a stone drag, — a broad plank dragged over the ground 
by two horses. 

Speeches were made in the open air, and the young people en- 
tertained themselves by dancing most perseveringly from Friday 
night until Sunday morning. 

In the midst of the assembly sat an elderly matron in decorous 
black, patiently listening and smoking a cigar. While traveling 
in Missouri, I have seen a mother and her little girl of ten years, 
smoking their pipes over the breakfast they were cooking. Once, 
stopping to spend the night with an intelligent young squatter 
from Tennessee, I found his wife a lovely blonde with liquid 
eyes and long drooping lashes ; but alas ! after serving tea, she 
drew from one of the smoky nooks of the chimney an old black 
pipe, and sat down to enjoy an evening whiff. 

During this summer and fall, fever and ague visited almost 
every farm-house. The disease is inevitable wherever a rich soil 
is broken for the first time, loading the air with miasma. Fruit 
and fresh vegetables are good preventives ; quinine the invari- 
able remedy. With ordinary care blondes may avoid it, but 
brunettes, being of more bilious temperament, rarely escape. Be- 
fore attacking it gives forewarning in blinding headaches and 
nauseous mouths. The ounce of prevention is cheap, the pound 
of cure costly ; for if lodged in the system it clings tenaciously. 
An old settler in the Wabash valley of Indiana once told me 
that he had suffered from it every season for twenty-seven 



132 FEVER AND AGUE EXPERIENCES. [1858. 

years. Still he not only clung to his cot but thought the valley 
he loved, a very Eden. Nearly all western States cherish legends 
of remote villages where the church bells are rung every day at 
noon for the people to take their quinine. But though the traveler 
is often told that chills and fever abound in the next settlement, 
he never finds a section which the inhabitants admit to be an 
' ague country.' 

Kansas has no swamps and little bottomland. But most of the 
early settlers (Missourians) regarded this disease as a necessary- 
evil. I remember a matron from Kentucky, pale and wan from 
years of its enervating and dispiriting attacks, who said : 

' I have been chilling now for two months and I never seen a 
well day in Kansas. A freestone country is never so healthy as 
a limestone countr}^, anyhow.' 

The invalid favored me with this oracular utterance late in the 
evening while indulging in a hearty supper of hot corn bread and 
molasses, fat pork and strong coffee ! 

In Kansas one heard the slang and provincialisms of every sec- 
tion of the country, beside some indigenous to the soil. The im- 
portations were chiefly from Missouri, which had furnished more 
than half the entire population. Most readers have heard Ohioans 
spoken of as 'Buckeyes,' (from the buckeye tree,) Illinoians as 
' Slickers,' Indianians as ' Hoosiers,' and Michiganders as ' "Wol- 
verines.' Early Californians christened as ' Pukes ' the immigrants 
from Missouri, declaring that they had been vomited forth from 
that prolific State. And however shocking to ears polite, the 
appt.^llation has adhered to them ever since. Missourians trans- 
planted into Kansas many of their pet home-phrases. One morn- 
ing at breakfast a squatter host of mine remarked : 

' These molasses is sweeter than any maple molasses I ever 
seen.' 

This unique use of the national saccharine only in the plural, 
not uncommon through the Southwest, originated in Pennsylvania. 
I heard another Missourian reply to inquiries touching his health: 

* I had the shakes last week, but now I have got shut of them.' 
A third, asked concerning his crop of corn, responded : 

* Yes, I raised a power of it. I have fed a heap to my cattle 
and got a right smart chance left.' 



1858.] PERPLEXING USAGES OF WORDS. 133 

Still another with the prevalent contempt for small estates, told 
me with great merriment about a traveler from Ohio who had 
only thirty acres of land, and actually called that a farm ! It 
was the one memorable jest in that Missourian's experience, and 
I am confident he never mentions it to this day without roars of 
laughter. 

' Tolerable ' is forced into universal service. Once in Missouri 
I asked a fellow traveler : 

' Is it a good road from here to St. Joseph ?' 

' Tolerable good, sir.' 

It proved intolerably bad. Just afterward meeting a teamster, 
I changed the form of the question, thus : 

'A-J^ad road from here to St. Joseph, is it not?' 

'Tolerable bad, stranger.' 

Next encountering a little darkey with staring white eyes, I in- 
quired : 

' Is it a straight road from here to St. Joseph ?' 

'Tolerable straight massa,' replied young Ebony, displaymg 
from ear to ear a row of ivory. The same evening, at a country 
inn, I heard a wayfarer ask : 

' Can I get to stay with you to-night . 

' I reckon,' answered Boniface, ' though we are right smart 
crowded.' And before our evening fire he spoke of a swelling 
upon his knee as 'a rising.' 

A school girl in Kansas asked her playmates from Missouri, — 

' Will you go a berrying with me?' 

'A burying I Why who's dead?' 

' Nobody : I mean, to gather blackberries.' 

Eural Missourians never carried burdens, but always ' packed* 
or 'toted' them. Among other provincialisms through the 
Southwest, the use of ' crapped ' (a corruption of cropped,) is 
sometimes droll and startling. General Marcy tells of an Arkan- 
san who, pointing to a little man with a huge wife, inquired : 

' Cap, don't you reckon that that thar little man has a bit over 
crapped his self?' 

The use of 'beef as the singular of ' beeves,' obsolete through 
the East, is common — the western farmer usually saying, ' I have 
jast sold a beef.' 



134 MYSTERIOUS SLANG PH RASES IISTTERPR ETED , [1855. 

The New Englander shouts to a distant friend : 

' Hallo a, John 1' The southerner or westerner cries : 

0-0-0-0, John !' 

Immigrants from the East were very merry at the expense of 
their Missouri neighbors. In a street discussion a lounger was 
defending as correct, the rural southern phrases, — 'We 'uns' and 
' You 'uns.' One of the bystanders asked him: 

'Are you a grammarian ?' 

' Which ?' was his bewildered inquiry. 

'Are vou a grammarian ?' 

' Why, no, I'm a Missourian !' 

It was a distinction ivith a difference. But the fun is not all on 
one side. I remember an old Missourian who was brought in 
contact with many eastern men by the establishment of a new 
stage line through his neighborhood. Said he : 

' I've lived on the frontier all my life. I know English and 
the sign-langaage, and have picked up a smattering of French, 
Spanish, Choctaw, and Delaware ; but one language I canH 
understand, and that is this infernal New York language!' 

One frequently heard the senseless phrase: 'Not by a dog- 
on-d sight,' or ' I wanted to go dog-on-d badly ' — meaning ' a great 
sight ' and ' very badly.' From Minnesota had been imported the 
mysterious term ' scull-duggery,' used to signify political or other 
tricker}'. One often heard, even from educated men remarks like 
this : 

Do 3-ou see Smith and Brown whispering there in the corner? 
They are up to some scull-duggery.' 

Another and more significant barbarism is ' the dead wood,' — 
from the game of 'ten-pins,' in which a fallen pin sometimes lies in 
front of the standing ones so that the first ball striking it will 
sweep the alley. ' I have the dead wood on him ' was used flimi- 
liarly, meaning: ' I have him in my jiower.' ' I have him corraled^'' 
originating in New Mexico and California from the Spanish corral 
or cattle-yard, bore exactly the same signification. ' Scooped ' 
was an importation from Wall Street. 'I am bad 1 3^ scooped ' 
meant: 'I am used up' or 'defeated.' 'Bursted' sometimes ap- 
peared even in print as the past tense of ' burst.' 

In his instructive Notes on the English Language, George P. 



1858.] PEARLS AND RETURNING GOLD SEEKERS. 135 

Marsh observes : ' In no part of America do the natives confuse 
their v's and w's after the manner of the Weller family.' But 
he will find native Pennsylvanians who say ' werry ' and ' wul- 
gar.' Even some graduates of leading universities habitually use 
' oncet ' and ' twicet.' Still our country has fewer provincialisms 
than any other, and the railways on their march of improvement 
are rapidly sweeping those away. 

In August Kansas was stirred by two new excitements. One 
was the reported discovery of abundant pearls on the Verdigris 
river, near the uninhabited southern border. The settlers rushed 
from all directions to pick up handfuls of such a tempting crop ; 
for human nature will not stay to dig potatoes and gather pump- 
kins when it is promised pearls. But these treasures proved 
to be worth about five dollars a bushel — solely for the magnesia 
they contained. 

Simultaneously with this came a gold fever, caused by the re- 
turn of several adventurers from the mountains. From earliest 
explorations by white men, the vast region of sand and alkali, 
sage-brush, greasewood and cactus, extending from western 
Kansas to the Sierra Nevadas, and from the British Possessions to 
northern ]\[exico, was called the ' Great American Desert.' Its 
boundless wastes, often sweeping for hundreds of miles in dreary 
sand-hills and plains destitute of water, trees and grass, were 
peculiarly repulsive and believed to be utterly unproductive. But 
the Eocky Mountains, crossing this whole tract from north to 
south, in a series of ranges sometimes a thousand miles in width, 
were more alluring. Their deep solemn forests of pine and fir, 
their flashing streams and lovely vistas of greensward inclosed 
by vast walls of rock with snow-covered summits were a pleasant 
relief to the eye wearied by desert wastes. There were early tra- 
ditions of gold and other treasures. A book published in Cincin- 
nati fifty years ago, sa3^s : 

'These mountains are supposed to contain minerals, precious stones and gold and 
silver ore. It is but late tliut tliey have taken the name Rocky Mountains ; by all the 
old travelers they are called the Sliining Mountains* from an infinite number of crys- 



* Idaho signifies ' the shining mountains,' — a fitting name ; for some of its peaks 
glitter in the sunlight with unequaled brilliancy. 



i 



136 COLONEL Gilpin's early predictions. [1858. 

tal stones of an amazing size, witii which they are covered, and which, when the sun 
sliines full upon them, sparkle so as to be seen at a great distance. The same early 
travelers gave it as their opinion that in future these mountains would be found to 
contain more riches tiiau those of ludostau and Malabar, or the golden coast of Guinea, 
or the mines of Peru.' 

These surmises excited little notice, for the * early travelers ' 
believed every mountain an El Dorado and every stream a Pactohis. 
The first statement which appeared worthy of serious attention was 
made by Colonel William Gilpin of the United States army. 
This gentleman, a zealous student of the natural sciences, crossed 
the continent with a party of Oregon explorers, and again with 
his command during the Mexican war. In 1849, in an address 
at Independence, Missouri, as the result of all his observations, he 
asserted the abundant existence of gold, silver, and precious 
stones throughout the Rocky Mountains. But his hearers voted him 
an enthusiast; and for ten years longer the only white inhabitants 
of the remote mountains continued to be trappers and traders. 

The first organized attempt to prospect the mountains for gold 
was made by a party of Cherokee Indians, in 1857; butthe}^ were 
driven back by hostile savages. General Marey relates that in 
May 1858, a teamster of his expedition returning from New 
Mexico to Utah, washed grains of gold from the sandy bed of 
Cherry Creek, where Denver now stands. In the spring of that 
year a party set out from Georgia to seek gold in these mountains, 
and at the same time several young men from Kansas stimulated 
by the sight of a rich nugget which a Delaware Indian declared 
he had found there, started for the same region. 

In August they returned, ragged and shaggy, but reporting that 
they had found rich deposits near the base of Pike's Peak. They 
told extravagant stories ; but when asked to show specimens of 
the precious metal one would produce from the bottom of his 
pocket a little quill containing a few shining grains. All the gold 
they brought home would not have paid a week's board for thepart}-. 

But their reports were corroborated by rumors from other 
sources and strengthened by ' the well-known proclivity of lumps 
to increase in size the further they roll.' Gold — talismanic word! 
— stirred the hearts of the mercurial population of the frontier. 
Several hundred persons immediately started for Pike's Peak — 



1858.] 



RATTLESNAKES AS BED-FELLOWS. 



187 



among tliem a persevering printer, who with precisely ten cents 
in his pocket trundled his complete outfit of clothing, provisions 
and mining tools 
in a wheelbar- 
row, seven hun- 
dred miles — 
from Kansas 
City to the base 
of the moun- 



tain; 



Thus 




J-fit/WLl '"'" 



beo;an the first 
migration to the 
Kocky Moun- 
tain gold region. 
Rattlesnakes 
were one un- 
pleasant feature 
of Kansas life. 
AVhile camping 
out, one some- retukxed puvk's peakers. 

times found 

them unpleasantly near him in the morning. In houses whose 
floors were laid with green lumber, which in seasoning left brond 
openings, the inmates were occasionally startled to see one of 
these reptiles peer up through a crack, and stare about the room. 
I knew one delicate lady from Connecticut, who on blackberrving 
expeditions in the woods, frequently killed huge rattlesnnkes 
three or four feet in length. I think the western species is less 
poisonous than those of the East ; for old settlers from Missouri 
and Illinois hold them in little terror. When bitten they drink 
from a pint to a quart of raw whisk}', which is believed to neutral- 
ize the virus, and reputed an unfailing remedy. The rattle of the 
snake has a peculiarly hollow, death-like sound; but he never 
springs without this warning, and he can only strike half the 
length of his body. 

During this fall many residents were preempting their claims. 
The law contemplates a homestead of one hundred and sixty 
acres at a nominal price for each actual settler and no one else ; 



138 



MYSTERIES OF PRE-EMPTING LANDS, 



[1858. 




A ilo;iNlX(i CALLER. 



but land is plenty and everybody preempts. A young mercliant, 
lawyer, or speculator, rides into the interior, to the unoccupied 

public lands, pays some settler 
five dollars to show him the 
vacant 'claims,' and selects 
one upon which he places 
four little poles around a hol- 
low square upon the ground, 
as children commence a cob- 
house. Then he files a notice 
in the land-ofiice that he has 
laid the foundation of a house 
upon this claim and begun a 
settlement for actual resi- 
dence, lie does not see the 
land again until ready to 
' prove up,' which he may do after thirty days. Then he revisits 
his claim, possibly erects a house of rough slabs, costing from ten 
to twenty dollars, eats one meal and sleeps for a single night un- 
der its roof More frequently, however, his improvements consist 

solely of a foundation 
of four logs. He goes 
to the land-office with 
a witness, and certifies 
under oath his desire 
to preempt the north- 
west quarter of section 
twenty-four, township 
ten, range thirteen, (or 
whatever the tract 
may be,) for his 'own 
exckisive use and ben- 
efit.' The witness also 
swears that the preemptor settled upon the land at the time stated, 
and erected 'a habitable dwelling,' in which he still resides. 
Sometimes he is interrogated closely ; but he can reply under oath 
to as many questions as the officer can ask ; so the preemptor ' lo- 
cates ' a land- warrant upon the claim — i. e., leaves one in payment 







A UAmXABLE DWELLING. 



1l 



1858.] FORMS OF 'duplicates' AND PATENTS. 139 

for it, as warrants can always be bought for less than one dollar 
twenty-five cents per acre, which must be given for Government 
lands when paid for in money. In return, he receives a prelimi- 
nary title or 'duplicate' in the following form: 

(Preemption Act of Sept. 4, 1841.) 
MnJTART Bounty Land Act of March 3, 1855. 

No. 3614. 

Register's Office, Kickapoo, K. T., Mareii 3, 1859. 

Military Land "Warrant No. 77,298 in tlie name of Mary W^ilkins, lias this day been 
located by John Smith upon the Northwest quarter of Section Tweuty-tliree, in Towu- 
Bhip Six, South of range Nineteen, subject to any preemption claim wliich may be 
filed for said land within forty days from this date. 

Contents of tract located, » 

160 acres. ' 

J. W. "WuiTFELD, Register. 

By Tiios. P. Beach. 

After the lapse of a few months, required for reporting the pre- 
emption to the General Land-office at Washington, upon tbe sur- 
render of his duplicate he obtains a final title or ' patent ' from the 
Government, inscribed on parchment, and running in this wise : 

THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 
To all to whom these presents shall come. Greeting- — 

Whereas, in oursuance of the Act of Congress approved March 3, 1855, entitled 
'An Act in addition to certain Acts granting Bounty Land to certain Officers, and 
Soldiers, who have been engaged in the Military Service of the United States' there 
has been deposited in the General Land Office, Warrant No. 77,C98 for one hundred 
and sixty acres, in favor of Mary Wilkins, widow of Willis Wilkins. Private, 
Captain Kenshaw's Company, Tennessee Militia, War 1812, with evidence that tlie 
smie has been duly located upon the Northwest quarter of Section Twenty-three, in 
Township Six, south of range Nineteen, in the District of lands subject to sale at 
Kickapoo, Kansas Territory, containing one hundred and sixty acres according to the 
Official Plat of the survey of the said land returned to the General Land Office, by the 
Surveyor General— the said Warrant having been assigned by the said Maiy Wilkins 
to Santford M. White, and by him to John Smith, in whose favor said tract has been 
located : Now know ye that there is therefore granted by the United Slates, unto the 
said John Smith, as assignee as aforesaid, and to his heirs, the tract of land above 
described, to have and to hold the said tract of land, with the appurtenances thereof; 
unto the said John Smith, as assignee as aforesaid, and to his heirs and assigns for- 
ever. 

In testimony whereof, I, James Buchanan, President of tlie United States of Amer- 
ica, have caused these Letters to be made Patent, and the Seal of the General Land 
Office to be hereunto affixed. 



140 



'OATHS ARE WORDS.' 



[1858. 



Given under my hand at the City of Washington, the Tenth day of September, in 
the Year of our Lord One Tliousand Eight Hundred and Sixty, and of the Indepeiv 
dence of the United States the Eiglity-titth. 

By the President, 

. * > 

James Buchanan. 

By J. B. Leonard, Secretary. 

J. W. Granger, Recorder of the General Land Office, 



Seal of 

the General 

Land Office. 



Eecorded Vol. 412, page 221. 

In three cases out of four, after 'proving up,' the preemptor 
never visits his hind again unless for the purpose of selling it 
Says the Spanish proverb, ' Oaths are words, and words are 
wind.' Thus this unequivocal perjury is regarded upon the fron- 
tier. The general feeling is that it wrongs no one, and that the 
settlers have a right to the land. 

Hundreds of men whose families are still in the East find wit- 
nesses to testify that their 
wives and children are re- 
siding upon the land. I 
have known men to pre- 
empt who had never been 
within twent}^ miles of 
their claims, facile wit- 
nesses swearing with the 
utmost indifference that 
they were residing upon 
them. 

The preemptors must 
state under oath that they 
have made no agreement 
direct or indirect for selling 
any part of the land. But 
in numberless instances 
these statements are false- 
hoods, connived at by the 
officers. 

In most land-offices a 
man cannot preemj^t unless 
he has a house at least twelve feet square. I have known a 







A HOUSE 'twelve BY FOURTEEN.' 



1858.] 



BORROWING A CHILD, 



U\ 



witness to swear that the house in question was ' twelve by four- 
teen,' when actually the only building upon the claim was one 
whittled out with a penknife, twelve inches by fourteen. 

Some offices require that the house must have a glass window. 
While traveling in the interior, I stopped at a little slab cabin, 
where I noticed a window-sash without lights hanging upon a nail. 
As I had seen similar frames in other cabins, I asked the owner 
what it was for. 

' To preempt with,' was the reply. 

'How?' 

' Why, don't you understand ? To enable my witness to swear 
that there is a ivindow in my house!' 

Sometimes the same cabin is moved from claim to claim, until 
half a dozen differ- 
ent i^ersons have 
preempted with it. 
In Nebraska a lit- 
tle frame house, 
like a country da- 
guerrean car, was 
built for this pur- 
pose on wheels^ and 
drawn by oxen. 
It enabled the pre- 
emptor to swear 
that he had a bona 

fide residence upon his claim. It was let at five dollars a day, 
and scores of claims were proved up and preempted with it. The 
discovery of any such malpractice and perjury would invalidate 
the title. But I never knew of an instance where the preemptor 
was deprived of his land after once receiving his title. 

No woman can preempt unless she is a widow or the ' head of 
a family.' But sometimes an ambitious maiden who wishes to se- 
cure one hundred and sixty acres of land, horroius a child, signs 
papers of adoption, swears that she is the head of a family, and 
preempts her claim; then annuls the papers and returns her tem- 
porary offspring to its parents with an appropriate gift. 

During an August excursion I was impressed for the hundredth 

10 




A BONA FIDE RESIDENCE. 



142 AN INGENIOUS RUNAWAY HUSBAND. [1858. 

time witli the surpassing beauty of a night in Kansas. Upon a 
soft background of pure sky, trees and foliage lay i:)enciled with 
wonderful distinctness ; the silent river was broken up into rest- 
less little waves that tossed hither and thither gleams of moon- 
light; and profoundest quiet rested upon wood and water, broken 
now and then by the cry of a whippowil or the far-off tinkle of 
cow-bells upon the prairie. 

Kansas life had novel social features. A prisoner in Atchison 
county was held to bail for appearance at court on some minor 
criminal charge. Any one's bond would have been taken ; but he 
resolutely refused to give bail. There was no jail wherein to con- 
fine him. There was no money in the treasury to hire a guard. 
The deputy-sheriff' was obliged to take him into his personal cus- 
tody ; and the prisoner, improving his first opportunity, leisurely 
walked away. 

William Arthur, a resident of Sumner, one day crossed the 
river in a skiff, with his wife and children. Near the Missouri 
shore was a long sand-bar, which the boat could not pass. Arthur 
secured it and left his family in it, remarking that he would swim 
the narrow arm of the stream, transact his business, and return 
in a few minutes. He was an excellent swimmer; so his wife of- 
ferred no opposition, and he plunged in. For a few jards he 
swam rapidly and easily; but suddenly he threw up his arms and 
sank, his hat floating away. In a few seconds he rose to the sur- 
face, struggled wildly, then sank again, and was seen no more. 
The cries of the distracted woman brought several men in skiffs, 
who searched for two days but without success; — in the strong Mis- 
souri current bodies are seldom found near the place of drowning. 

Arthur and his wife had sometimes quarreled, but the grief of 
the widow was very poignant. I shall never forget the shrieks 
and groans of the poor woman during the days and nights imme- 
diately after her bereavement. But Time the great healer calmed 
her; the estate was finally settled and the little property secured 
to herself and the children. 

She afterward learnt that her husband sank intentwnalhj, swam 
several rods under water, came up behind a log and breathed for 
a moment, then continued, still under water, to the shore, and 
gained the bank unperccived. There the ingenious scoundrel 
amused himself for a while by watching the search made for his 



1858.] A CLEVER STRATAGEM SPOILED. 143 

corpse, then procured a hat and spent the night at the house of a 
confidential friend ; traveled across Missouri and Illinois to In- 
diana, and there under an assumed name married again I AVhen 
his wife heard this, she started in pursuit of her old husband and 
his new partner in a spirit illustrative of Congreve's aphorism : 

' Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.' 

I never learned the result, but there must have been a ' wreck of 
matter ' when she caught them. 

About the same time the invalid wife of a Territorial officer was 
sent to New Orleans for her health. Her husband received several 
letters from her dated and postmarked at the Crescent City. But 
one day in St. Louis, while awaiting dinner in the reading-room of 
the Planters' House, he glanced at a weekly newspaper published 
in an obscure Indiana town. Suddenly his attention was arrested 
X3y an advertisement notifying him that his wife had applied for a 
divorce and that the case would be tried the following day. 
The truth flashed upon the thunderstruck husband. While 
sending her letters to New Orleans for mailing, his wife had re- 
sided in Indiana long enough to claim a residence under the 
peculiar divorce laws of that State. As the statute required, she 
had notified him by publication; relying upon the trivial circula- 
tion of the paper as a safeguard against its reaching him. Though 
one of the best laid schemes, it went 'a-gley.' Her distracted lord 
rushed upon a train of cars just leaving for the East, chartered a 
special locomotive from an Indiana junction to the county seat, 
and entered the court- room while the case was pending, just in 
time to prevent judgment against him by default. He found his 
wife under the protection of another prominent Kansas politician, 
who had been for some weeks ostensibly in New York. Proceed- 
ings were stopped, the trio returned home, and husband and wife 
resumed their old relations. 

During night rides in winter, I often saw prairie fires blazing 
along the horizon. Though never dangerous to men or animals, 
as depicted in our school-geographies, they are always startling and 
grand. The sky is pierced with tall pyramids of flame, or covered 
with writhing, leaping, lurid serpents, or transformed into a broad 
ocean lit up by a blazing sunset. Now a whole avalanche of fire 



144 FERTILITY OF THE HEMP REGI01S-. [1858. 

slides off into the prairie, and then opening its great, devouring 
jaws closes in upon the deadened grass. 

One of my December trips was to St. Joseph. Crossing the 
Missouri my road led along rich bottomlands, from three to eight 
miles wide, densely wooded with noble trees, and prolific of fever 
and ague. Like the high Kansas prairies, which sometimes yield 
one hundred and twenty-five bushels to the acre, this damp jet- 
black soil produces corn in incredible abundance. If political 
economists are right, and the happiness of a people is in exact 
proportion to their rapidity of increase, Missouri must be the very 
home of the blessed; for at every cabin tow-headed boys and 
girls spring up and grow like weeds. They can hardly be more 
plentiful along the Nile, where it is said to cost only three dollars 
apiece to rear children to maturity. 

Leaving this narrow valley, I entered the garden of Missouri. 
Instead of log-cabins plastered with mud, appeared generous frame 
and brick dwellings surrounded by natural parks of oak and elm. 
On all sides were fields of corn wheat and hemp. The latter re- 
quires rich soil ; a Missouri proverb asserts that land which will 
raise hemp will produce any other crop. Here in fields of a hun- 
dred acres the hemp, already cut, was rotting upon the ground, 
or standing in stacks like wheat sheaves. The slaves were fat 
and comfortable-looking, but few in number ; for recent mechani- 
cal improvements in cutting and breaking hemp were rapidly 
taking the place of manual labor — silent colporteurs spreading the 
gospel of freedom. Twenty years before, the farmers preempted 
their land at one dollar and twenty-five cents per acre; now it 
was held at thirty and forty dollars. The settlers had grown rich 
by selling their products for the heavy overland-trade. This com- 
merce built up successively Jefferson City, Booneville, Independ- 
ence, Kansas City, Westport, Weston, St. Joseph, Leavenworth, 
Atchison and Omaha, as each in turn became the chief out fit- 
ting point for the emigration to California, Oregon, Colorado, 
Montana, and Idaho. 

St, Joseph now contained five thousand inhabitants, was built 
mainly of brick, and pleasantly shaded. But wise ones prophe- 
sied that it could never be a great city, as it stood on the east side 
of the river, while all important commercial towns on the frontier 



1858.] REPUBLICAN VERSUS BLACK REPUBLICAN. 145 

Spring up on the western banks. On tlie way homeward, I en- 
countered an Indiana family en-route for Kansas, in a covered 
wagon drawn by two horses. They had not slept under a roof for 
two months. The ground was covered with snow, and the mer- 
cury below zero ; but the wife and little children all declared that 
they slept comfortably in their vehicle in the open air. 

Beaching the Missouri again, I found the ice running so heavily, 
that it was impossible to cross. Two days passed before the win- 
ter bridge became firm enough for footmen and horses. 

This autumn certain rash friends in Sumner had nominated me 
for the legislature. Upon election morning one of my Pro-slavery 
neighbors, an ex-Missourian, addressed me at the polls with great 



earnestness 



' Mr. R— , I heard your speech the other night, and I liked your 
sentiments. But I am told that after I came away you avowed 
yourself a black republican. I had concluded to vote for j^ou, 
but I cannot vote for a black republican. Did you say it?' 

' No. I know no political distinctions now except Free State 
and Pro-slavery. But I did say that whenever the Territory be- 
came a State, and the issue should arise between republicanism 
and democracy, I should be a republican.' 

' Well !' (very earnestly,) you didn't say hlack republican, did 
you?' 

'No, sir.' 

'Then I shall vote for you, for I liked your speech ; but I'll be 
d — d if I ever vote for a black republican !' 

Several democrats labored long and patiently to convince him 
that the obnoxious adjective was inseparable from the inoffensive 
noun. He heard them patiently, but then replied : 

' Gentlemen, I don't think Mr. R— is that kind of a man. He 
don't act like it, he don't look like it, he don't talk like it ; and I 
am bound to vote for him.' 

And vote for me he did, to their great disgust. 



146 A BIT OF LEGISLATIVE FVN. [1859. 



CHAPTER XII. 

The Territorial legislature of this winter was a more reputable 
body than that of the previous year. Still one of the representa- 
tives, originally from Indiana, in recording himself a physician 
transcribed very promptly the letters ' P-h-i-s-i ' — then hesitated a 
moment, and at last, turning to a bystander asked in all seriousness : 

'Do you spell physician 'tion,' or 'sion?' 

This parliamentary body had the genuine frontier fondness for 
rollicking humor. One day a jovial lobby member from Coffey 
countv, whom for convenience I will call Jones, was discovered 
attempting to kiss a chamber-maid at his hotel. This was a good 
pretext for sport. So, late that night a burlesque court was organ- 
ized. A Hoosier judge, named Baker, irrepressibly funny, pre- 
sided. Mr. Larzalere the speaker of the House of Eepresentatives, 
was appointed to the high dignity of constable. An indictment 
was framed against Jones, charging him with the offense already 
mentioned, as committed ' in defiance of the form of statute for 
such cases made and provided, and against the peace and dignity 
of the Territory of Kansas.' 

The constable found him in bed ; but he was unceremoniously 
dragged forth, and after a hasty toilet, brought into the court- 
room. A jury was impaneled with some difficulty, many persons 
being challenged on the most novel grounds. Territorial Secretary 
Walsh, for example, was excused from serving, on the allegation 
of bad moral character. Two members of the House were ap- 
pointed, one to prosecute, and the other to defend the suit. It be- 
ing well understood that all fines there assessed were payable in 
oysters, the witnesses, instead of being sworn to tell the truth the 
whole truth and nothing but the truth, were reminded that they 



1859.] COST OF KISSING A CHAMBER-MAID. 147 

Stood before an august tribunal in the great Mississippi valley ; and 
warned to stand on tUeir dignity, and give the testimony which, 
in their judgment, would j^/'od ace the most oysters for the court! 

The proof, though utterly contradictory, was held conclusive, 
the court ruling that names and dates were immaterial, and that 
hearsay testimony was circumstantial evidence. The case was 
made out in the most minute manner, even to exhibiting the bald 
head of Jones, from which the young woman was alleged to have 
plucked the hair in self-defense! The prosecuting attorney — 
John W. Wright, who had been for twenty years a district judge 
in Indiana — attempted to break down a witness for defense named 
Warren, by asking impertinent questions, when Warren retorted 
by giving such testimony as implicated Wright himself in the as- 
sault, and he was promptly taken into custody as an accessory to 
the crime. R. B. Mitchell, counsel for defense, upon hinting that 
the court was partial, was fined two cans of oysters for contempt. 

The case was argued. The court, in charging the jury, instruct- 
ed them peremptorily to bring in a verdict of guilt3\ The prose- 
cutor suggesting some further instructions in regard to the amount 
of the fine, the judge rebuked him sharply, assuring him that the 
court understood herself perfectly! Jones was of course foand 
guilty. The j adge, after a touching appeal to his feelings, fined him 
twelve cans of oysters and two baskets of champagne; assured 
him that it being a court of original and exclusive jurisdiction, 
there could be no appeal from its decisions, and ordered him into 
custody until the fine and costs should be paid. lie, entering fully 
into the spirit of the occasion, did not demur; and within half an 
hour, court, jury, spectators and the prisoner, sat down to the repast. 
Toasts, songs and speeches followed, and the festivities were pro- 
longed until the total expense to Jones of attempting to kiss the 
pretty chamber-maid, footed up to about a hundred dollars. 

The legislature passed scores of divorce bills. Practically, any 
one asking for a divorce, could obtain it; and in every case both 
parties were authorized to marry again. One lady (whose hus- 
band had separated from her in Boston because like the mighticat 
Julius he would have a wife above suspicion,) now residing tem- 
porarily in Kansas, sent in a petition to be released from her bonds. 
The chairman of the House committee on marriage and divorce — ■ 



148 EASY DIVORCE IN NEW STATES. [1859. 

a confirmed old bachelor — reported with grim satire, that the 
wrongs she had suffered appealed to the humanity of (^vevy mem- 
ber present ; and recommended that her prayer be granted. A bill 
was at once reported: the rules were suspended and in four or five 
hours it passed both branches, was signed by the governor and 
became a law. 

One wag in the House, introduced a bill declaring marritige aboL 
ished in Kansas, and free love established in its place. A second 
moved that the legislative bachelors proceed to ballot for the ' wid- 
ows' who bad been divorced. A third in an earnest speech de- 
clared tliat divorce bills were now passed so hastily as to render it 
unsafe for a married man to seek his domestic couch at night, lest 
he should wake up in the morning tu find himself violating a com- 
mandment. I received a letter from a citizen of Massachusetts ask- 
ing v/hethei' his wife, who was spending the winter in Lawrence, 
passed by her maiden or wedded name, and whether she had ap- 
plied for divorce. Upon examining the statutes, I learned that 
she had been divorced for more than six months. 

The divorce laws of all our new States and Territories are prac- 
tically very liberal ; seldom compelling men or women to remain 
in marriage bonds which they wish severed, save in cases where 
the motive for gaining freedom is obviously mercenary. It is a 
striking illustration of the differing customs of different sections, 
that while in South Carolina, and also in New Mexico where the 
doctrines of the Roman church rule, no one can obtain a divorce 
for any cause, yet in Utah even the probate courts have full power 
with or without public notice to divorce any person demanding it, 
with or without cause. 

This Kansas legislature abrogated b}^ a single act, the multitu- 
dinous and barbarous laws passed by the legislature of Missouri 
invaders, and until now in nominal force. The repeal caused gen- 
eral rejoicing; and in a bonfire of tar barrels at Lawrence, the 
huge volume of bogus statutes was burned amid joyful shouts 
and huzzas. Another copy was sent to the governor of Missouri, 
with a statement that the people of Kansas had no further use 
for it. 

The legislature also passed an ' amnesty act,' directing that all 
persons charged with crimes arising from political disturbances in 



1859.] 



PRISONERS BROUGHT TO LAWRENCE. 



14'9 



several counties named, should be set at liberty, and be exempt 
from further trial for deeds of the past. This compromise meas- 
ure -was designed to put a stop to the endless feuds, and to start 




THE END OF THE 'BOGUS LAWS.' 

anew, with a clean record under an agreement from Free State and 
Pro-slavery men, to discountenance all further violence. But on 
the day after the adjournment of the legislative assembly, the 
quiet city was stirred by an excitement, sudden and fierce as a 
Texas norther. It was caused by the arrival from Bourbon coun- 
ty, of fifteen Free State prisoners, handcuffed and strongly 
guarded. The officer in charge was reported to be Hamilton, the 
Marais des Cj'^gnes murderer. As the party entered town, the 
news passed through the streets like a gust of wind over a field of 



150 



AN UNFORTUNATE HAMILTON. 



[1859. 



ripe wlieat. The citizens, without organization or leader, ruslied 
forth to rescue the prisoners. Thej bore them triumphantly to a 
blacksmith shop, and cut off their irons. 

The shaggy, wild-looking guard, half intoxicated, and wholly 
frightened, attempted to fly, but were pursued by a madly-shouting 
crowd. Successively each was caught, dragged from the saddle, 
and deprived of horse, gun, and revolver, with the speed of light' 
ning. Then the eager ciy rang out : 

Hamilton ! ' Where's Ilamilton ?' 

A horseman suddenl}^ struck spur and galloped away. The ex- 
cited crowd saw him, and pursued. 

'There he goes!' was the shout, followed by the flash of twenty 
rifles and revolvers. Bat the bullets passed harmless, and he was 
out of rauo-e. 

Afterward it appeiired that the horseman was not the Ilamilton 
and did not belong to the poss.^ ; but was a quiet citizen who chanced 
to ride into town wiih it. He learned precisely what's in a name, 




\ 



what's IX A XAME? 



and narrowly escaped death because an acquaintance had been 
overheard to call him ' Hamilton.' 



1859.] A HARD COUNTRY FOR GOVERNORS. 151 

The guns taken from the posse were United States arms. The 
captors retained them ; to the victors belonged the spoils. 

Fighting and speech-making were the two essentials of a Kan- 
sas excitement. Now that one was over the other followed. The 
crowd, swollen to a thousand people, gathered in front of the Eld- 
ridge House and called for the Territorial governor, Samuel Me- 
dary. He was an old Ohio journalist and politician who had suc- 
ceeded Denver. Thus far he had been popular, and he was now 
received with cheers. He commenced by condemning the violent 
proceedings; and insisted that the captured guns should be given 
up. Many of these guns were visible in the crowd, but Medary's 
demand was received with universal shouts of ' No, no, no.' 

The angry governor reiterated that the arms were Territorial 
property and should be surrendered if it took twelve months and 
the United States army to accomplish it. Sidney Smith's friend 
who had once voyaged to the polar regions, and ever afterward 
bored everybody about them, one day met a literary acquaintance 
upon the street. The great reviewer, hurried and impatient, sub- 
mitted to be button-holed until he heard the stereotyped beginning : 

' When I was at the North Pole' — and then irascibly broke 
away, ejaculating : 

' Oh, d— n the North Pole !' 

Shocked and appalled, the poor explorer walked on until he 
met the immortal wit, who proved a patient listener to the story 
of his wrongs, and after its rehearsal remarked solemnly : 

' It was just like ; he is the most irreverent man I ever 

knew. Why I have heard him speak disrespectfully of tne 
equator !' 

The Kansans were equally reckless ; they had no mite of re- 
spect even for the equator. The governor's threat caused shouts of 
derisive laughter, with sarcastic suggestions that his excellency 
should take the guns at once ! ^ledary saw that he was on 
dangerous ground, and after a few general patriotic remarks, re- 
tired from the rostrum. 

Then there was a spontaneous call for Lane. That old war 
horse emerged from the crowd, threw off the black shaggy bear- 
skin overcoat which he invariably wore, mounted a wagon and 
spoke for half an hour, drawing a shout of laughter or a round 



152 KIDNAPPING OF JOHN DOY. [1859. 

of applause with almost every sentence. Lane was distinctively 
a vessel of wrath. He had long hated Medary politically, and 
owed him a personal grudge, because in an official communica- 
tion the governor had addressed him as ' Mr.' instead of ' Gen- 
eral.' The grim adventurer now wreaked his revenge in a most 
fierce and withering excoriation. He seemed to have studied 
Medary's entire biography and recited an appalling catalogue of 
his political crimes for the last twenty years ; first in Ohio, and 
afterward as Territorial governor of Minnesota where he was 
charged with conniving at gross election frauds in the remote 
Pembina I'egions. 

Medary was in his hotel, within ear-shot, while Lane thus paid 
up old scores and left a large margin for the future. Tlien 
speeches were made by other leading Free State men, and the 
meeting adjourned. The guns were never given up. 

It was reported that Medary, by direction of President Bu- 
chanan, had offered a reward of two hundred and fifty dollars for 
tiie capture of old John Brown. Brown retorted by offering a 
reward of two hundred and fifty dollars for Buchanan's head, 
lie said he would have proposed it for Medary's head if he had 
not feared that some of his men would actually take it ! 

Brown was now residing in Kansas. I never met him though I 
heard much of him from followers, friends and enemies. He sel- 
dom participated in public meetings, always declaring himself 
ready when any fighting was to be done, but adding that there 
was too much talking, and too little shooting. The Free State 
men knew his unbounded bravery and perfect integrity, but re- 
garded him as partially insane; and there were well-grounded 
reports that he had approved of some dreadful reprisals in the 
form of killing unarmed Pro-slavery settlers. 

During this winter Dr. John Doy of Lawrence was conducting 
thirteen negro fugitives across the Territory toward Iowa. A 
party of Missourians, without legal process, captured him in Kan- 
sas, fifty miles from the State line, and by force carried him to St. 
Joseph, where he was tried on the charge of enticing away slaves — 
a felony punishable with death. 

The kidnapping of Doy caused much excitement in Kansas, 
and the legislature voted a thousand dollars to secure legal coui> 



1859.] HIS RESCUE BY JOHN BROWN. 153 

sel for liim. I attended the trial in St. Joseph. One of the coun- 
sel for the State, Colonel Doniphan, of Border Euffian renown, 
said in addressing the jury : 

' If we allow our negroes to be stolen with impunity, our fair- 
skinned daughters must be reduced to the contemptible drudgery 
of the kitchen !' 

Ex-o-overnor Sliannon of Kansas, another of the counsel, with 
great gravity, and without the least intention of satire, announced 
that he had learned during a long residence near the border of 
Virginia, that slaves would sometimes run away of their own vo- 
lition ! 

The indictment charged the offense as committed in Platte 
county, Missouri, though the prosecution was unable to prove that 
Doy had ever been within thirty miles of that State till he was 
kidnapped. On the first trial the jury failed to agree. At the 
next term of the court the prisoner was convicted, and sentenced 
to the penitentiary. But one dark night old John Brown and a 
party of followers crossed the Missouri, broke open the jail, res- 
cued Doy, and carried him safely back into Kansas — beating the 
kidnappers at their own game. 

Old settlers of Kansas preserve many traditions of John 
Brown's shrewdness, daring and religious enthusiasm. At Osa- 
wattomie, m 1856, when Henry Clay Pate with his Missouri sold- 
iers attempted to capture Brown, the old Spartan captured him and 
his entire command. On another occasion he escaped unperceived 
from a house which his pursuers beseiged and guarded for three 
more days and nights, supposing him still there and not daring to 
enter. Again and again he captured officials who had been sent 
in pursuit of him. He so inspired his followers with his own re- 
ligious enthusiasm, that they deemed themselves under the direct 
protection of the Almighty, and seemed absolutely fearless of 
death. Hundreds of runaway slaves were led by that little band 
through the perils of Kansas, to the freedom and safety of Iowa; 
and in camp every morning their captain read a chapter in the 
bible and knelt down in prayer before starting on their day's 
march. 

In December, 1857, I spent eight days upon a little steamer as- 
cending the Missouri to Kansas. The tedious hours were pleas- 



154 KANSAS TAPPED BY THE RAILWAY. [1859. 

antlj abbreviated by a pair of bright eyes from Connecticut, 
owned by a maiden bound on a music- teaching mission to Missouri. 
' That teaching was a very clever subterfuge' said everybody, 'she 
was really an Abolition emissary in pursuit of a Border Ruffian 
husband.' Miss Fanny was indignant ; but she met such badi- 
nage with all the denials in her vocabulary. Finally, one dreary 
evening we left the little pilgrim on the muddy shores of her new 
world ; and desolate but undaunted she went on her way. 

In March 1859, in the cabin of a steamer near St. Joseph, I en- 
countered a little lady making laudable pretenses of matronly 
dignity. It was the Miss Fanny of our memory — the Madam 
Fanny of our prophecies, accompanied by the Border Euffian of her 
fancy as well as ours. Like many other mortals, her intentions 
were good, but destiny was too strong for her. 

Early in the spring of 1859 the Hannibal and St. Joseph rail- 
road was completed across the State of Missouri, placing Kansas 
in direct communication with the eastern States. With the rail- 
road came the telegraph ; and we were no longer isolated from the 
world. 

How marvelous are the changes of half a century — changes 
witnessed by some who read these lines! Go back with me forty 
years to one of our Atlantic cities, and imagine that Mr. Smith of 
Boston finds it necessarj' to take a trip to what has since be- 
come known as Kansas. Smith looks forward to the journey as 
a most solemn affair. For weeks the feminine members of his 
household are employed upon his wardrobe ; it will hardly do to 
start with less than a 3'ear's outfit. Intelligence of his proposed 
trip creates a great sensation, and everybody looks upon him as a 
daring fellow. 

The hour of departure draws near. What solemnity pervades 
his domestic circle ! Finally, having completed his preparations, 
settled up his business, and made his will, Smith bids his weeping 
fomily a long farewell, and starts on his perilous journey. What 
untold dangers are before him ! Hardships by land, sea, canal and 
river — in stage coaches, in sloops, in canal boats, on horseback, 
and in batteaux propelled by human power against the strong cur- 
rent of the mad Missouri. If no hostile Indian steals his scalp, 
he reaches Kansas after a journey of three months. He remains 




AN AUuLlTJuX KMISSAUV. Page 154. 



1859.] THE LUXURIES OF MODERN TRAVEL. 155 

but seven days — a short respite after so long travel — and tlien 
tarns liis face eastward. Perhaps at St. Louis, three weeks later, 
he finds awaiting him a missive from home — a letter which has 
been seventy or eighty days on the way. 

After seven months' absence and many hardships, he is over' 
joyed to reach home ; for the journey has taught him that ' the 
world has a million roosts for a man but only one nest.' He is 
received as one risen from the dead. For the rest of his life 
Smith is a hero ; he is lionized by everybody, regarded as one of 
the seven wonders of the world and pointed out to strangers on 
the street as a living man, who has actually been four hundred 
miles beyond the great ^lississippi into the howling wilderness. 

Contrast that period with the present. Now, Mr. Brown of 
Boston, reflects on a Saturday night while walking home from 
his counting-room, that he is a little worn down by close 
attention to business, remembers that he has a few investments 
which need looking after and concludes to take ' a run ' out to 
Kansas. So on Monday morning he gives a few directions about 
his business, packs half a dozen clean shirts, a Railway Guide and 
an Atlantic Monthly into his carpet-sack, says ' Good-by ' to Mrs. 
Brown and the little Browns, and steps into the railway carriage. 

For the next three daj^s he lives at the rate of twenty -five miles 
an hour. At night he retires to his couch in the sleeping-car, al- 
most as luxurious and secluded as his own apartment at home. 
If an old traveler and familiar with the route, he spends the 
hours of darkness in unbroken slumbers, all unmindful of city 
and village, forest and prairie,, that whisk by in panoramic 
beauty. In the morning he wakes two or three hundred miles 
farther on, to find awaiting him his boots freshly polished by the 
porter, and convenient bathing and dressing saloons in which to 
make his toilet. 

On Thursday morning he breakfosts in Kansas. He too, re- 
mains seven days and meanwhile receives daily telegrams an- 
nouncing that all is well at home. Finally, on the second Thurs- 
day morning, he takes a return train. If he is fortunate enough 
to retain his head — for locomotives are quite as dangerous as In- 
dians — he reaches home on Saturday evening after an absence of 
two weeks. He finds tea awaiting him, smoking hot on the 



156 A LITTLE TRIP TO KANSAS. [1859. 

table ; for on the way he telegraphed that he should arrive bv the 
six o'clock train. His journey attracts no attention. Ordinary 
acquaintances have not missed him. A few friends as they meet 
him on the street, remark : 

' Hallo, Brown ! haven't seen you for a few days. Been in the 
country ?' And he replies : 

'Yes, just taken a little trip out to Kansas.' 

In three days the locomotive has borne him sixteen hundred 
miles in its iron arms. In a period absolutely imperceptible, the 
telegraph has flashed to him messages from the loved ones at 
home along its sensitive nerves. Such the triumphs of forty 
years. The Florentine philosopher was right — 'Still it moves !' 



1859.] GREAT STAMPEDE FOR THE MIXES. 157 



CHAPTER XIII. 

Thus far there were no trustworthy reports of gold in paying 
quantities among the Rocky Mountains. But every newspaper on 
the Missouri river expressed absolute confidence that rich mines 
existed ; and demonstrated irresistibly that the town wherein said 
newspaper was published was nearer the mines than any other, 
and therefore the place for emigrants to purchase cattle, wagons, 
provisions and mining tools. 

In the early spring of 1859, there was a grand stampede for 
the mountains. The hitherto solitary plains suddenly became 
densely peopled. A line of daily coaches was put on from Leav- 
enworth to Denver, via. the new Republican route, costing three 
hundred thousand dollars before the first vehicle started, and in- 
volving a running expense of eight hundred dollars per day. 
Stations from 'One' upward were established from ten to twenty- 
five miles apart, over prairie and desert. A thousand mules and 
a hundred stages were scattered along the route. The fare from 
Leavenworth to the mountains was one hundred dollars; way 
tariff twenty -five cents per mile. 

But most emigrants went by private conveyances. Every great 
thoroughfare was white with wagons, and by night the smoke of 
ten thousand camp-fires curled to the astonished clouds. Some 
emigrants drew their entire supplies in handcarts, to which they 
had harnessed themselves; others bore them packed upon their 
backs — each a domestic Atlas, with his little world upon his 
shoulders. 

Some who started too early had hands and feet frozen. Others 

consumed all their provisions before one-third of the journey was 

accomplished, and were fed for weeks by those more bountifully 

supplied. Thousands took an unexplored route, up the Smoky 
11 



158 



THE SUFFERINGS ALONG THE ROUTE. 



[1859. 



Hill river, where grass and water proved wofully scarce and fear, 
ful suffering prevailed. The road was lined with cooking-stoves, 
clothing and mining tools, thrown away to lighten the loads. In 
the absence of grass, many emigrants were compelled to feed flour 
to their exhausted cattle. Some wandered off upon the desert, in 
the hope of finding a shorter route and nearly perished from hun- 
ger. A few died from starvation ; and one emigrant from Missouri 
actually subsisted for several days upon the bod}' of his deceased 
brother, and when found was a raving maniac. 




THE PEAT) BROTHER. 



The rush to the mines was now succeeded by a panic quite as 
contagious. E,e]3orts that the exhibited gold had come from Cali- 
fornia and not from the mountains, turned back thousands of emi- 
grants — some before they had gone fifty miles from the river and 
others when they were within twenty -five of the alleged gold 
region. Still many pr-ssed forward, and large parties of undis- 
maved adventurers continued to start dailv. The countrv had 
known notliing like it since tlie great California excitement ten 
years before, when thirty thousand emigrants crossed the plains. 
It was an uncontrollable eruption — a great river of human life 
rolling toward the setting sun — at once a triumph and a prophesy. 



1859.] 'concord wagon' or stage coach. 159 

On the twentj'-first of May, the first return coach from the 
mountains reached Leavenworth. It brought only three thousand 
five hundred doHars in gold dust; but there was an enthusiastic 
celebration with sonorous speeches and sanguine predictions. The 
arriving vehicle was richly decorated, and bore the high-sounding 
motto : 

' The gold mountains of Kansas send greetings to her commer- 
cial metropolis.' 

Another coach which went out to escort it into the city was 
correspondingly labeled : 

'Leavenworth hears the echo from her mineral mountains and 
sends it on the wings of lightning to a listening world.' 

Ifay 25. — I left Leavenworth by the overland mail carriage 
built in Concord, New Hampshire, known as the Concord wagon. 
Ill a dozen localities its manufacture is imitated with more or less 
success but never equaled. The little capital of the Granite State 
alone has the art of making a vehicle which like the one-hoss 
shay, 'don't break down, but only wears out.' It is covered with 
duck or canvas, the driver sitting in front, at a slight elevation 
above the passengers. Bearing no weight upon the roof, it is less 
top-heavy than the old-fashioned stage-coach for mud-holes and 
mountain-sides, where to preserve the center of gravity becomes, 
with Falstaff s iiistinct, ' a great matter.' Like human travelers on 
life's highway, it goes best under a heavy .load. Empty, it jolts 
and pitches like a ship in a raging sea ; filled with passengers and 
balanced by a proper distribution of baggage in the 'boot' be- 
hind, and under the driver's feet before, its motion is eas}- and 
elastic. Excelling every other in durability and strength, this hack 
is used all over our continent and throughout South America. 

Two coaches, each drawn by four mules, leave Leavenworth 
daily and make the entire trip together, for protection in case of 
danger from Indians. A crowd gathered in front of the Planters' 
House to see our equipages start. Amid confused ejaculations oi 
' Good-b}', old boy.' ' Write as soon as you get there.' ' Better 
have your hair cut, so that the Arapahoes can't scalp you.' ' Tell 
John to send me an ounce of dust.' ' Be sure and give Smith that 
letter from his wife.' ' Do write the facts about the gold,' the 
whips cracked and the two stages rolled merrily away. 



160 ST. MARY'S CATHOLIC MISSION. [1859. 

Beyond Easton and Hickory Point we passed hundreds of 
freight and emigrant wagons stalled in the mud, William H. 
Eussell the chief freighter of the plains, owns many of them. 
Last year he employed twenty-five thousand oxen and two 
thousand wagons, chiefly in transporting supplies for our army 
in Utah. He stipulates that any one of his teamsters who whips 
cattle unmercifully or utters an oath, shall forfeit his wages. Of 
course the precaution proves ineffective, for there is a logical 
connection between mud-holes and profanity. 

Before night we entered the Pottawatomie Indian reservation^ 
where prairie wolves, prairie hens and rabbits abound. Spent the 
night at Silver Lake, (Station Four,) with a half-breed family. 
Playing upon the floor were two dusky children both, as we were 
informed, born like Richard with teeth ; and in the mother's arms 
reposed an infant three months old, whose jaws already displayed 
similar ornaments. 

At midnight arrived two return coaches from the mines. The 
passengers encountered the Missourian, with whose horrible story 
we were already familiar. He showed them the severed head of 
his brother, and declared that he found the brains a delicious mor- 
sel. Days' travel sixty-eight miles. 

May 26, — This morning rode in a driving rain over the prairies. 
Passed St. Mary's Catholic Mission — a pleasant, home-like group 
of log-houses, and a little fi-ame church, bearing aloft the cross — 
among shade and fruit trees, in a picturesque valley. The mission 
has been in operation twelve years. In the school-room we saw 
sixty Indian boys at their lessons. 

Rock Creek was swollen to a torrent, which compelled us to 
spend the afternoon and night at the city of Louisville — a city of 
three houses. Its hotel afi:brds the inevitable fiit pork, hot biscuits 
find muddy coffee. The landlady is a half-breed ; and her two 
daughters with oval faces, olive complexions and bright black 
eyes the only pretty Indian girls I have ever seen. 

Scores of emigrants are encamping along the stream. One 
having caught a turtle as large as a peck measure, invited us to 
p.iitake of a savory soup, which we imbibed from tin cups, sitting 
on a log. 

Two returning coaches filled with passergers were detained on 



1859.] HORACE GREELEY TAKING A TOUR. 161 

the opposite side of the stream through the night. One enter- 
prising traveler attempted to reach our side in a skiff; but was 
overturned and gained the bank by swimming. Day's travel 
twenty-eight miles. 

May 27. — At daylight the creek had fallen so that our mules 
crossed without swimming. Some of the countless emigrants on 
the road have cows yoked with oxen, serving as motive power by 
day and giving milk at night. AYe passed one two-wheeled cart 
drawn by a horse in the shafts, with a yoke of oxen before him. 
Beyond the three houses which compose the town of Pittsburg, 
we crossed the Big Blue river and reached Manhattan — a flourish- 
ing Yankee settlement of two or three hundred people in a smooth, 
and beautiful valley. It is overlooked by a conical mound two 
hundred and fifty feet high, commanding a fine view of the rich, 
well timbered soil along the Kansas and the Blue. 

Thus far I had been the solitary passenger. But at Manhattan 
Horace Greeley after a tour through the interior to gratify the 
clamorous settlers with speeches, joined me for the rest of the 
journey. His overland trip attracted much attention, A farmer 
asked me if Horace Greeley had failed in business, and was going 
to Pike's Peak to dig gold ! Another inquired if he was about to 
start a newspaper in Manhattan. And as we were leaving one 
station an Indian girl said to a new-comer : 

' Horace Greeley in his old white coat is sitting in that 
coach !' 

Twenty miles beyond, after passing three large fiirms based on 
'a horizontal rather than a perpendicular agriculture,' we reached 
Fort Riley, one of our most beautiful military posts, and iu the 
geographical center of our national possessions. All the buildings 
are two stories high, of light limestone resembling marble. 

Just beyond, we crossed the Republican river, which rising near 
the Rocky Mountains, winds eastward for six hundred miles and 
here unites with the Smoky Hill Fork to form the Kansas. The 
dim, conical, smoky hills from which the chief tributary is named 
are visible on the horizon though a hundred miles distant. Tim- 
ber abounds near the fort ; a cottonwood tree nine feet in diameter, 
was recently cut here. We stopped for the night at Junction Git}'-, 
(Station Seven,) the frontier post-office and settlement of Kansas. 



162 



A LIMITED STOCK OF GROCEEIES. 



[1859. 



The editor of its weekly newspaper, an old Californian, spoke witb 
great enthusiasm of the Golden State. Mr. Greeley replied : 

' I have heard some hundreds of returned Californians use the 
same expressions ; but one thing I cannot understand. If you 
liked California so well why didn't you stay there?' 

' Because I was a d — d fool !' replied the roving journalist. 
In the evening by invitation of the citizens, Mr. Greeley ad- 
dressed an attentive audience in the unfinished stone church. 
Theme, ' Eepublicanism.' Day's travel forty miles. 

May 28. — At a creek-crossing, a little tent beside our road is 
labeled 'grocery ' in enormous letters. With keen appetites we 

awake the melancholy 
merchant who in green 
spectacles is sleeping 
soundly between two 
whisky barrels. 

'Have you any crack- 
ers?' 

' Nary cracker.' 
'Any bread ?' 
'Any whatV 
'Bread.' 

'No >SVr,' (indignantly, j^ 
' I don't keep a bakery.' 
'Any ham?' 
'No.' 

'Any figs?' 
'No.' 

'Well what have you?' 
'Why I have sardines, 
pickled oysters, smoking 
tobacco, and stranger, I 
have got some of the best whisky you ever seen since you was 

born !' 

The narrow valleys of the streams are still rich ; but the upland 
Boil grows thin and sandy. At one fertile valley-farm we saw 
herds of fat cattle and a corn-field of a hundred acres, in addition 
to the common frontier spectacle of a tow-beaded mother, with 
nine tow-headed children. 




GROCERY. 



1859.] A MODEL LETTER OF INTRODUCTION. 163 

Left behind were the last outposts of civilization ; now 

'Away, away, from tho dwellings of men 
To the wild deer's liauut, aud the bullalo's glen.' 

Dined at Chapman's creek, in a station of poles covered with sail 
cloth, bat where the host superior to daily drenchings, gave us an 
admirable meal upon a snowy table-cloth. 

Timber disappearing; only straggling fringes remain along the 
creek, with an occasional solitary tree on the prairie indicating the 
whereabouts of water. 

Began journeying now among the buffalo grass, two inches 
high, thick, wiry, nutritious and little injured by frost or drowth. 
Prairies spangled with wild onions, and antelopes bounding over 
the slopes. 

Met thirty Cheyenne Indians on a begging and stealing expedi- 
tion, who asked for whisky and tobacco. Nearly all bore certifi- 
cates of good character from white men ; but one solemn old brave 
complacently presented me the following testimonial which some 
wag had given him : 



This Indian is a drunkard, a liar and a notorious old thief; look out for him 1' 



Stopped for the night at Station Nine, consisting of two tents. 
In the evening wrote newspaper letters in the coach by a lantern. 
As the air was damp and chill with rain and the vehicle shaken 
with wind, I fancy the Tribune printers will find Mr. Greeley's 
manuscript even less legible than usual. At ten o'clock composed 
ourselves to sleep in the carriage to the music of howling wolves 
and heavy thunder. — Day's travel sixty-eight miles. 

May 29. — Wild roses, wormwood of various species, thistles, 
narrow-leafed dock and many other new plants and flowers, some 
of rare beauty, appear along our road. Crossed Hurricane 
Creek, named from a furious tornado two weeks ago, which over- 
turned heavy freight wagons, blew a light buggy into fragments, 
tore open boxes and scattered dry-goods for several miles, and 
rolled cooking-stoves forty or fifty yards. 

The distant slopes are dotted with the antelope, the best living 
illustration of the poetry of motion. Miles away, when his earth- 
colored body is quite indistinguishable, one sees his white tail flut- 



164 A SPECIMEN OF EDITORIAL PENMANSHIP. [1859 




















FAC SIMILE OF HORACE GREELEY'S MANUSCRIPT. (FROM A TRIBUNE EDITORIAL, 1866.) 



1859.] AMONG THE ANTELOPES AND BUFFALOES. 165 

tering in the breeze like a shred of linen — a perpetual flag of truce 
to human enemies. Here he ventures near us, but on the older 
roads, rifles and shot-guns have made him shy and difficult to ap. 
proach. Old hunters are wont to stick a ramrod in the earth with 
a handkerchief flying from it, and then conceal themselves among 
the grass or sand-hills. The antelope, lured by a curiosity fatal 
as mother Eve's, circles nearer and nearer, until he falls by the 
cruel bullet. From a close view his liquid eyes suggest infinite 
pathos and more than human tenderness. He is easily domesti- 
cated, and naturally tame. 

The antelope and the buffalo are antipodes. One is incarnate 
grace ; the other clumsiness itself. The antelope gallops airily 
over the hills, with an elasticity surpassing the fleetest race-horse. 
The buffalo is heavy and awkward ; and the male, with huge 
head and enormous shaggy neck from which the hair hangs to the 
ground, canters lumberingly along like a mastodon suddenly 
awakened and uncertain of his native element. 

Dined at Station Ten sitting upon billets of wood, carpet-sacks, 
and nail-kegs, while the meal was served upon a box. It con- 
sisted of fresh buffalo meat, which tastes like ordinary beef 
though of coarser fiber, and sometimes with a strong, unpleasant 
flavor. When cut from calves or young cows it is tender and 
toothsome. 

Hundreds of deep buffalo trails cross our road ; and through the 
whole afternoon the prairies for miles and miles away, quite black 
with the huge animals, look like bushes covered with ripe whortle- 
berries, or like wood-land afar off. The cows are about the size 
of our domestic cattle. The bulls are twice as large, and roll in 
the sand and wallow in mud-holes like hogs. "While great 
droves are feeding in the vallej's they keep sentinels on the 
ridges, ready to give notice of the approach of danger. Running 
herds produce clouds of dust, and shake the earth like thunder. 
The calves are kept in the center of the drove for protection 
against men and wolves. 

A huge tree beside our road is completely covered with names 
of emigrants and dates and messages for their friends behind: an 
ingenious and very public post-office. 

Six weeks ago not a track had been made upon this route. 



166 



A JOVIAL PRAIRIE illCAWBER. 



[1859. 



Now it resembles a long-used tiu-npike. We meet many return. 
ing emigrants, who declare the mines a humbug ; but pass hun- 
dreds of undismayed gold-seekers still pressing on. 

One Ohio wagon bears the inscription, ' Eoot Hog or die.' A 
returning passenger states that fujther on he encountered a philo- 
sophical emigrant whose wagon was labeled, 'Pike's Peak or Bust.' 
One after another the travelej-'s cattle died, till only one cow and an 
ox were left. During a luckless night these either strayed away or 
were stolen by Indians. The next day my informant found this 
prairie Alicawber sitting upon- his wagon-tongue smoking his pipe 
and waiting for something to turn up. But under the first in- 
scription he had pen- 
ciled with charcoal: 
^Busied, hy thunder r 
Spent the night at 
Station Eleven, occu. 
pied by two men 
who gave us bread 
and buffalo meat like 
granite. — Day's trav- 
el, fifty-six miles. 

May 80. — Large 
gray wolves abound 
near our road. They 
often kill old or 
wounded buftaloes, 
and sometimes open 
graves and devour 
human bodies. Upon this newly-opened thoroughfore through 
the heart of the buffalo country the animals are very tame. Tens 
of thousands are feeding beside the track, and they often cross it 
five or six yards before us, compelling the driver to stop, lest they 
should stampede the mules. The mule never becomes ]'econciled 
to buflfjdo or Indian, and if stampeded, the most rheumatic animal 
will dash off at incredible speed. In some instances they have run 
fifty miles before they could be stopped. 

One serene old bull approaches within twenty rods of us and 
the driver waits while I fire at him again and again with Sharpe's 







' BUSTED, BY THLXDER !' 



1859.] FACTS ABOUT THE BUFFALO. 167 

rifle. He contiuues to approach, only greeting each ball that 
strikes him with a nervous movement and switch of the tail, as a 
sensitive horse would respond to a fly. As he is facing me I am 
unable to hit him back of the fore-leg; and forward of that, the 
buffalo is not vulnerable. After I have fired four or five times he 
turns and limps slowly away into a ravine. Afterward I fire at 
several others with the same brilliant success. Mr. G. urges me 
to continue, on the ground that it amuses me and does not hurt the 
buffalo ; but is quite too uncertain of his own marksmanship to 
try the rifle. 

These animals add inconceivably to the poetry and life of the 
plains. 'Geographers and road-makers by instinct,' the best 
routes across the continent have been e^stablished upon their 
beaten trails. They once roamed over the entire Pacific slope 
and thence eastward to Lake Champlain. The last buffalo east 
of the ^Mississippi was killed in 1832. According to Fremont, up 
to 1836 one traveling between the Rocky Mountains and the Mis- 
souri never lost sight of them. They have now greatlj^ diminished, 
as more than half a million are killed annually — often from 
wantonness or curiosity. Every emigrant is ambitious to shoot a 
buffalo; and whitened skulls perforated by bullets, make the road 
a Golgotha. But even now, some authorities believe that they 
outnumber all the domestic cattle of the United States. 

To the prairie Indian they are useful and indispensable as the 
camel to the Arab, or the reindeer to the Laplander. Their flesh 
supplies him -with food during the entire year. Their hides clothe 
his person, protect his lodge from winter storms, and aflbixl him 
an article of barter with the traders. Their hoofs furnish him 
with glue, for manifold purposes; and in these treeless wastes 
their excrement is an admirable substitute for firewood. Their 
strong necks and their tougli foreheads, which will flatten a rifle 
ball like a wall of stone, constitute a formidable battering-ram, 
ahnost justifying the belief that if a buffalo had taken the place 
of the unfortunate bvfll which attempted to butt the locomotive off 
the track, he would have met a happier fate than that brave but 
indiscreet animal. A blow from the head of a calf two months 
old, is sufficient to prostrate an athletic man. 

R B. Fuller, superintendent of this division of the stage route, 



168 A NARROW ESCAPE FROM DEATH. [1859. 

while riding in a desert- valley encountered several thousand of 
these wild cattle ; and his mule with characteristic perversity, re- 
fused to budge an inch, but stood broad-wise to the approaching 
herd. Under the horns of the first bufialo the steed dropped 
dead upon the spot, almost without a single kick. His rider, 
stunned by the shock, fortunately fell close beside the mule, and 
so escaped being trampled to death. In a few seconds, recovering 
his consciousness, he saw that several of the ponderous brutes had 
already leaped over him ; and drawing his revolver he fired six 
shots in rapid succession. The reports and smoke broke the herd 
into two columns; and in a few minutes with saddle and bridle 
upon his shoulder he was walking briskly toward the road, vow- 
ing that he would never, never, never ride a mule again. 



1859.] HORACE GREELEY'S WIDE-SPREAD FAME. 169 



CHAPTER XIV. 

May 80. — (Continued) — At Station Twelve where we dmed, 
the carcasses of seven buffaloes were half submerged in the creek. 
Ycsterda}' a herd of three thousand crossed the stream, leaping 
down the steep banks. A few broke their necks by the fall ; 
others were trampled to death by those pressing on from behind. 

This afternoon our coach was stopped at a creek-crossing by a 
mired wagon which blocked the road. Several Ohio emigrants 
with their weary cattle were endeavoring to extricate it. Mr. G. 
assisted them in their efforts to lift the wheels from out the Slough 
of Despond. While they paused a moment one inquired of the 
stranger his business. He replied that he was connected with a 
New York daily journal. 

'What journal?' 

' The TrihuneP 

' Ah ! that's old Greeley's paper, isn't it ?' 

' Yes sir.' 

Just then another of the party who had been absent, returned 
and recognizing the ablest editor and the most influential Ameri- 
can of our generation laboring at the wheel, said to his comrades: 

'Gentlemen, this is Mr. Greeley of New York.' 

The curious interrogator was dumb with amazement and cha- 
grin. 

Nearly every train we pass contains some emigrant who stops 
the coach and remarks : 

' Mr. G. my name is . I heard jom lecture fourteen years 



ago. 



And the veteran journalist invariably replies : 
'O, yes! How are my old friends A. and B. and C.?' nam- 
ing half-a-score of citizens in the region — whether of Maine or 



170 



HALF A MILLION OF BUFFALOES. 



[1859. 




HORACE GREELEY. 



Minnesota — from wliich the stranger bails. But to-day on the 
outskirts of a crowd a stolid-looking gold-seeker asked me earn- 
estly : 

'Stranger, is that John Gree- 
ley those fellows talk so much 
about?' 

* No — Horace.' 

' Horace — Horace Greeley — 
"who is he ?' 

' Editor of the Tribune.'' 
'Which?' 

'Editor of the New York 
Tribune.'' 

'What's thai r 

I enlightened my interlocutor, 
who seemed to feel that he had 
{gained valuable information, and explained that he was 'born and 
raised ' in Missouri. 

After being mired in the same creek for two hours, our own 
vehicle was drawn out by the oxen of friendly emigrants. Spent 
the night at Station Thirteen. Day's travel, fifty-six miles. 

Mar/ 31. — Though still plentiful, the buffaloes are diminishing. 
Mr. G. believes them nearly identical with the buffaloes he has 
seen on the Campania in Italy, though considerably larger. But 
"ihe authorities call the American animal the bison, to distinguish 
him fi'om the Asiatic buffalo. The former was never seen by 
Europeans till Cortez and his followers found two or three in the 
zoological gardens of Montezuma. 

When Lewis and Clark ascended the Missouri, half a century 
ago, a herd of these animals crossing at one point choked the 
stream for a mile, compelling the explorers to wait till they had 
passed. Their report hesitatingly asserts that they 'thought' 
they saw twenty thousand at once ; but I am confident we looked 
upon forty thousand from one stand-point, and that in all we have 
seen half a million. For several days we have never been out of 
sight of them except when our coach was in some deep ravine. 

To-day we have been among prairie-dog towns, passing one 
more than a mile long. Some of their settlements are said to be 



1859.] THE CURIOUS LITTLE PRAIRIE-DOG. 171 

twenty miles in lengtli, containing a larger population than any 
metropolis on the globe. The little animal is a trifle larger than 
the gray squirrel, subsists on grass and has none of the character- 
istics of the dog but his yelp, which is like that of a young puppy. 
Small owls perch upon the mound beside his hole ; but there are 
no sisrns of the traditional rattlesnake said to be an unwelcome 

O 

joint occupant of his subterranean city, whose labyrinthine pas- 
sages honeycomb the ground. The hillock of earth extracted 
from each hole, is ten or twelve inches high and two feet in 
width. Upon this stands the prairie-dog, erect on his hind 
legs. His house is his castle, llis own picket and scout, he 
maintains a sharp lookout for his foreign enemy the wolf, and 
has an occasional domestic feud with his persistent co-tenants, the 
rattlesnake and the owl. 

The most honest of real estate dealers, he acts upon the great 
truth that inhabitants are indispensable to a city, and never offers 
lots in paper towns to unsuspecting victims. There is no deceit 
in that honest jovial face. Vegetarian diet has not made him an 
ascetic ; he takes the world like a philosopher and a gentleman ; 
frolics merrily with his fellows in the warm sunlight, and as you 
approach, scampers home. There from his own roof he gazes 
quizzically at you, shaking his fat sides with laughter; and as you 
reach forth your hand to take him, he turns a graceful summer- 
sault, gives a series of hearty cachinnations, and affording a dis- 
solving view of his tail, dives into his underground domicile. 
This evening we supped on his flesh, and found it very palatable, 
re-embling that of the squirrel. 

We spend the night at Station Fifteen, kept by an ex-Cincin- 
nati lawj^er, who with his wife, formerly an actress at the Bowery 
Theater, is now cooking meals and making beds for stage passen- 
gers on the great desert three hundred miles beyond civilization. 
The mimic stage presents few sharper contrasts. Our road, fol- 
lowing the valley of the Republican river, is here two thousand 
three hundred feet above sea-level. At midnight arrives a return 
coach bringing a fair delicate Indiana boy who ran away last 
spring, froze his feet en route for the mines, and after many 
hardships is now glad to return to home and school. Day's 
travel fiftj'-six miles. 



172 HEALTH AND STRENGTH OF THE SAVAGE. [1859. 

June 1. — Like Dombey and Son the Indiana boj proved 'a 
daughter after all!' She was dressed in male costume with a 
slouching hat which she wore at table to conceal her features. 
She talked little, but in walking from the tent to the coach her 
gait betrayed her. She is twenty years old; appears intelligent 
and well educated ; professes to be returning to her parents in 
Indiana after spending three months in the mines ; but gives no 
reason for her dangerous and unwomanly freak. 

Dined at Station Sixteen, kept by a Vermont boy who has 
roamed over twenty-seven States of the Union. Near it was en- 
camped a party of Arapahoes, with thirty or forty children play- 
ing upon the grass. Those under four or five years were entirely 
naked. The older boys wore breech-clouts of buffalo skin, and 
the girls were wrapped in robes or blankets. All were muscular 
and well developed. Old trappers assert that they never saw an 
Indian idiotic or naturally deformed. Only in the centers of 
civilization, the bee-hives of the human race, are the helpless little 
ones thus smitten. Herbert Spencer describes the British laws as 
'those twenty thousand statutes which every Englishman is sup- 
posed to know and which no Englishman does know.' Relentless 
nature is like the State. She presumes every man to know her 
laws; she pardons none for his ignorance; she inflexibly punishes 
every disobedience. Nay, severer still, she visits the sins of the 
fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generation. 

Indian women, accustomed to hard labor in the open air, never 
compel a traveHng party to stop more than three or four hours on 
the birth of a child. If left behind they overtake the expedition 
the same evening or the next day, with the little new-comer 
strapped on the maternal back. They ride astride like men. 

The bo}' s of this company were very expert with the bow, easily 
hitting a silver half-dollar at sixty or seventy yards. All were 
inveterate beggars, asking by signs for food and drink. Their 
camp consisted of twenty conical lodges twelve or fifteen feet 
high — buffiilo robes with the fur inside, stretched around a circle 
of poles. These dwellings ten or twelve feet in diameter, with a 
hole at the top for the escape of smoke, are warm in winter and 
cool in summer. The Sibley tent used in our army is modeled 
upon them. 



1859.] OVERTURN OF THE COACH. 173 

In front of each the shield and quiver of the brave rested upon 
a pole or tripod. The shields, worn upon the left arm, are covered 
with antelope skin or buffiilo hide stuffed with hair, and will usu- 
ally ward off any rifle ball which does not strike them perpen- 
dicularly. The bows have great force, sometimes throwing an 
arrow quite through the body of a buffalo. 

Several squaws who were making moccasins fringed with beads 
offered me a pair for a cup of 'sooker,' (sugar.) Others were eat- 
ing soup with their fingers from a kettle, while naked children on 
the ground were gnawing tough buffalo meat. A dozen muscu- 
lar half-naked braves lying in the sun shook hands with me, de- 
claring themselves 'Good Indians.' But only ^^esterday they 
threatened to kill and scalp a station -keeper unless he should 
leave their country. 

Descending an abrupt hill, our mules, terrified by meeting three 
savages, broke a line, ran down a precipitous bank, upsetting the 
coach which was hurled upon the ground with a tremendous crash, 
and galloped away with the fore- wheels. I sprang out in time to 
escape being overturned. From a mass of cushions, carpet-sacks 
and blankets soon emerged my companion, his head rising above 
the side of the vehicle like that of an advertising boy from his 
frame of pasteboard. Blood was flowing profusely from cuts in 
his cheek, arm and leg ; but his face was serene and benignant as 
a May morning. He was soon rescued from his cage, and taken 
to Station Seventeen, a few yards beyond, where the good woman 
di-essed his galling wounds. 

From their village near by many Cheyennes pressed around our 
baggage which was scattered upon the ground. They are instinct- 
ive thieves, and we watched them with drawn revolvers until it 
was carried to the station. There were three chiefs in the party : 
' Little Bear,' ' Antelope,' and ' Black Wolf Two had cut-throat 
faces ; their features, as often occurs among savages of every race, 
reminding one strongly of wild beasts. But Black Wolf looked 
good-humored and honest. Complacently joining me in a cigar he 
assured me by signs and the few English words in his vocabulary, 
that he was going to shoot 'heap of buffaloes.' Then pointing 
toward the west and digging in the ground with his fingers he 
ejaculated: 'Money! money!' to indicate his knowledge of the gold 

12 



174 



A NIGHT IN A CHEYENNE VILLAGE, 



[1859. 



discoveries. An old brave of at least ninety now hobbled iij), 
telling me in dumb show that he was aged, almost blind and 




A CllANtiE OF UASK. 



should soon sice]-) in 
the ground, rind — 
would I give him a 
little tobacco? 

In the evening Black 
Wolf took me through his village. The warriors wore long hair 
dressed in cues, and lengthened by a strand of buffido hair until it 
reached the ground. Ornaments of tin and silver jingled from 
their ears. The cheeks and foreheads of squaws were painted 
bright vermilion. At nightfall the women brought in the ponies 
and picketed them among the lodges, that they might not be un- 
prepared for a midnight alarm. In profoundest peace, the Indians 
maintain all the system and precaution of an army in time of war. 
As usual we sleep in the coach which, vibrating in the strong 
prairie wind, rocks like a cradle. Day's travel forty-nine miles. 



1859.] REPUBLICAN RIVER UNDER GROUND. 175 

June 2. — Mr. Greeley awoke so stiff and sore that he could not 
moye a muscle without suffering ; but we continued on by the 
sandy valley of the Republican, destitute of tree and shrub and 
barren as Sahara. Spent the night at Station Nineteen. Day's 
travel sixty-four miles. 

June 3. — Encountered several Indian villages moving; their 
ponies di'awing the lodge-poles, beside carrying heavy loads upon 
their backs. The life of these Indians is simply a bivouac, never 
a settlement. The savages found on our Atlantic coast by pio- 
neer settlers, lived in permanent villages, cultivated corn, were 
without horses, hunted on foot and seldom wandered far from 
home. But these prairie Bedouins all travel on horseback, taking 
their effects with them. At half an hour's notice they gather up 
their wives, children and all other earthly possessions and start 
on a journey of hundreds of miles. Reaching their destination, 
they are entirely domesticated in another half hour. They do not 
till the ground, but live exclusively^ on fresh meat, which they eat 
in enormous quantities. This arid desert is (Mie of the healthiest 
regions in the world, and its pure air a wonderful appetizer. Tiie 
regular allowance of the American Fur Company for each em- 
ployee was eight pounds of bufflilo meat dail^". 

As usual passed hundreds of emigrants. The latest coach from 
Denver brings fine specimens of gold dust, and reports new rich 
discoveries, to the great elation of all the pilgrims. At Station 
Twenty-one where we spent the night, we first encountered fresh 
fish upon our table. Here the enormous cat-fish of Missouri 
and Kansas has dwindled to the little horned-pout of New Eng- 
land, lost its strong taste and regained its legitimate flavor. Day's 
travel fifty-nine miles. 

June 4. — We still follow the Republican which at one point, 
sinks abruptly into the earth, running under ground for twenty 
miles and then gushing up again. We saw one thirsty emi- 
grant digging in the dry bed for water. At the depth of four or 
five feet he found it; but it argues a lively imagination to speak 
of such a sand plain as a river. These subterranean passages are 
as common among the streams of our deserts as in the far Orient. 

After riding twenty-five miles without seeing a drop of water, 
at Station Twentj^-two we crossed the Smoky Hill route which 



176 



FIRST VIEW OF PIKE's PEAK. 



[1859. 



from a point far south of ours, abruptly turns northward across 
the Republican to the Platte. Emigrants who have come by the 




THE REPUBLICAN RIVER. 



Smoky Hill tell us they have suffered intensely, one traveling 
seventy-five miles without water. Some burned their wagons, 
killed their famishing cattle and continued on foot. 

We are still on the desert with its soil white 'Vith alkali, its 
stunted shrubs, withered grass, and brackish waters often poison- 
ous to both cattle and men. Day's travel forty-eight miles. 

June 5. — At daylight Pike's Peak more than a hundred miles 
away, appeared dim and hazy on the horizon and we began to feel 
the inspiring breath of the mountains. Most emigrants were en- 
camping out of respect for the Sabbath, and the sore feet of their 
cattle, which they carefully bandaged. 

At our dining station. Twenty-five, I met several old Kansas 
acquaintances, so dust-covered and sunburnt that for several min- 
utes I did not know them. That would be a keen-eyed mother 
who could recognize her own son at a glance under the dirt and 
disguise of plains-travel. Toward evening. Pike's Peak loomed up 
grandly in the southwest, wrapt in its ghostly mantle of snow 
and streaked by deep-cut gorges shining in the rays of a blazing 
sunset — 

'The seal of God 
Upon the close of day.' 

In the northwest Long's Peak was sharply defined against a mass 



1859.] INSPIRING PRESENCE OF THE MOUNTAINS. 177 

of ominous black clouds wliicli rising slowly left behind tbem a 
scattered trail, dark and wild as the locks of the storm-god. 

What solemn influences descend to us from these mountain 
summits ! Year after year, upon their echoless heads has rested 
the finger of Silence. Around their feet are wrapped the dark 
pine forests. Rigid and unimpressible, yielding neither to sum- 
mer's gentle ministry nor winter's despotic strength, to the soft 
touch of caressing winds and light-dropping showers, nor the fierce 
assault of warring blasts, they stand stately and undisturbed. 

But now human voices made musical the solitudes. The unac- 
customed air responded in glad echoes, and before us smiled a 
bright little valley, dotted with white tents and gleaming with 
many camp fires. 

Supping at Station Twenty -six we made a comfortable bed in 
the coach, and rolling on at the rate of seven miles an hour, slept 
quietly through the night. 

June 6. — Woke at five, still in motion, and obtained a glorious 
view of the mountains, their hoary peaks covered with snow and 
their base, thicty miles across the valley into which we were de 
scending, seeming not more than two miles away. 

At last we struck the old trail from Santa Fe to Salt Lake, rode 
a mile along the dry bed of Cherry Creek, and at eight this 
eleventh morning reached Denver City. Day-and-night's travel 
one hundred and thirty miles. During our journey from Leaven- 
worth we have doubtless passed ten thousand emigrants. 

— Making governments and building towns are the natural em- 
ployments of the migratory Yankee. He takes to them as in- 
stinctively as a young duck to water. Congregate a hundred 
Americans anywhere beyond the settlements, and they immedi- 
ately lay out a city, frame a State constitution and apply for ad- 
mission into the Union, while twenty-five of them become candi- 
dates for the United States Senate. 

True to this instinct, the people of this unfledged community, 
nominally in Kansas but practically as far from government and 
civilization as central Africa, were already making a State consti- 
tution ; and months before, they had laid out Denver City. 

It was a most forlorn and desolate-looking metropolis. If my 



178 DENVER CITY IX ITS INFANCY. [1859. 

memorj is faithfd, there were five women in the whole gold 
region ; and the appearance of a bonnet in the street was the 
signal for the entire population to rush to the cabin doors and 
gaze upon its wearer as at any other natural curiosity. The men 
■who gathered about our coach on its arrival were attired in 
slouched hats, tattered woolen shirts, buckskin pantaloons and 
moccasins; and had knives and revolvers suspended from their 
belts. 

"We took lodgings at the Denver House. True to the national 
instinct, the occupants of its great drinking and gambling saloon 
demanded a speech. On one side the tipplers at the bar silently- 
sipped their grog; on the other the gamblers respectfully sus- 
pended the shuffling of cards and the counting of money from 
their huge piles of coin, while Mr. Greeley standing between 
them, made a strong anti-drinking and anti-gambling address, 
which was received with perfect good humor. 

Thus far no gold had been discovered within sixty miles of 
Pike's Peak ; but the first reports located the diggings near that 
mountain, and 'Pike's Peak' — one of those happy alliterations 
which stick like burs in the public memory — was now the general 
name for this whole region. 

The first extravagant statements had all been based upon sup- 
position. Prospectors found 'the color' — infinitesimal quan- 
tities of the shining dust — and nothing more, chiefly in the bed of 
the Platte. The mountains had not been searched to any extent. 
So little confidence was felt in the mines, that in Denver, picks 
commanded only ten or fifteen cents apiece, and town lots and 
log houses were bartered for revolvers, or sold for ten or twenty 
dollars. Of the few men engaged in mining, not half-a-dozen were 
realizing one dollar per day. 

But on the sixth of May — just one month before our arrival- 
John H. Gregory, an old Georgia miner, struck rich deposits of 
gold in the mountains among the head-waters of Clear creek ; and 
from that discovery dates the history of Pike's Peak as an ascer- 
tained gold region. 



L859.] STAKTING FOR THE GREGORY DIGGINGS. 179 



CHAPTER XV, 



On the morning after reaching Denver -we started for the 
Gregory Diggings, forty miles to the northwest. Along the bank 
of the Platte which bounds the town on the north, immigrant wag- 
ons extended for a quarter of a mile, waiting to be ferried across 
for two dollars and fifty cents each. The boat was propelled by 
the current, and its daily receipts were from twc^ to three hundred 
dollars. 

Immediately beyond, stretched a succession of low sandy hills, 
entirely destitute of trees, and with thin ashen grass, dreary 
enough to eyes familiar with the rich green prairies of Kansas 
and Missouri. But we passed several ranches where idle cattle 
and horses, whose owners were in the diggings, were kept and 
guarded by the month at from one to two dollars per head. By 
day they grazed on the desert and really fattened upon its un- 
promising diet. At night they were corrakd — driven into enclos- 
ures — to prevent them from stampeding and protect them against 
the cattle-thieves, which infest all our frontier regions until exter- 
minated or frightened away by the sudden, decisive administra- 
tion of lynch law. 

From Denver to the foot of the range seemed only a stone's 
throw, but we found it fifteen miles. The only well-defined spur 
is Table Mountain ; which rises five or six hundred feet from 
the valley, with sj'mmetric stone walls. It looked down upon 
two little tents, then the only dwellings for miles ; but in the in- 
tervening years it has seen a thriving and promising manufac- 
turing town spring up under the broad mountain-shadow. 

At its base we found Clear creek, greatly swollen so we left 
the coach, saddled our mules and rode them throusrh the stream 



ISO 



OUR WEARY AND WIXDIXG "WAY. 



[1859. 



amid a crowd of emigrants who sent up three hearty cheers for 
Horace Greeley. The road was swarming with travelers. In the 







m0 










painfully the climax of Ossa upon Polion. 



CLIMLl.NG IMO THE ilOLM'AlXS. 



distance they were clambering 
right up a hill as abrupt as the 
roof of a cottage. 

It seemed incredible that 
any animal less agile than a 
mountain goat could reach the 
summit; yet this road only 
five weeks old, was beaten like 
a turnpike; and far above ug 
toiled men mules and cattle 
pigmies upon Alps. Wagons 
carrying less than half a ton 
were drawn up by twenty 
oxen, wbile those descending 
dragged huge trees in full 
branch and leaf behind them, as brakes. 

"We all dismounted to ascend except 
Mr. Greelev, still so lame that his over- 
taxed mule was compelled to carry him. 
The astonished brute 3'ielded to destiny 
and climbed vigorously, experiencing 



1859.] IN THE HEART OF THE MOUNTAINS. 181 

In an hour and a half we readied the summit. Far below, on 
the top of Table Mountain gleamed a little lake. At the foot of 
the long hill were the pigmies again ; and beyond, the valley of 
the Platte with its dark timber and shining water. Before us 
mountain lay piled upon mountain ; some grassy, others gaunt 
and bare. From most rose the pine, spruce and hemlock in perfect 
cones, interspersed with quivering aspens; while brilliant flowers 
clothed the desolate rocks with beauty. 

Our road led us past the new-made grave of a young immigrant, 
one of many victims to the careless use of fire-arms. Up and down 
the steep mountain sides, across swift-running, ice-cold streams, 
over jagged rocks and through deep canyons overshadowed by 
sullen walls,^we wound our toilsome way. An eager crowd kept 
pace with us ; some walking, others with ox* wagons pack-horses 
or mules, and all pressing toward the mines. 

At night we turned our patient animals out to graze, and en- 
camped under a sloping roof of fir and pine boughs. Our cook 
elect kindled a blazing fire, by which we sat listening to the con- 
flicting reports of the sanguine or disheartened gold seekers ; those 
going forward led by buoyant hope, and those coming back 
bringing dearly-bought experience. 

Wrapt in our blankets upon the hard ground, we gazed through 
fir boughs at the far-off stars, until the deep soothing music of the 
pine, the Eolian harp of the forest, mingled with our dreams. 

The next morning we started early, and descending a steep 
hill reached at last the Gregory Diggings. The valley presenied 
a confused and constantly-shifting picture, made up of men, tents, 
wagons, oxen and mules. The first miner we encountered was 
digging a hole like a grave beside a little rivulet, but reported to 
us that he had not yet ' struck the color.' 

Along the rocky gulch for five miles were scattered log cabins, 
tents and camps covered with boards sawn by hand or with pine 
boughs. At the grocery tents, meat was selling at fifty cents per 
pound ; and beside the stream women were washing clothes at 
three dollars per dozen. 

After breakfasting in the open air, we went from camp to camp 
talking with miners, and studying their operations. They found 
DO gold in the stream-beds ; but were washing out the ' rotten 



182 FIRST RELIABLE REPORT OF THE MINES. [1859. 

quartz ' which they gathered from narrow crevices in the granite 
on hill-sides, Gregory, Green Russell and the other old Georgia 
miners, very expert in detecting lodes, found abundant employ- 
ment in 'prospecting' for new-comers at one hundred dollars 
per day. In our presence one miner washed two dollars and fifty 
cents from a pan-full of dirt, and told us that another pan had 
just yielded him seventeen dollars and eighty-seven cents. 

Some twenty sluices were in operation. In gulch or placer- 
mining the dirt is shoveled into a long wooden sluice or trough, 
through which a stream of water pours, washing away the earth 
and leaving the heavy gold dust at the bottom. These sluices 
were of lumber, which was cut with hand-saws and commanded 
three hundred dollars per thousand. There was much specula- 
tion in claims; some had sold as high as six thousand dollars, 
cash. 

Most of the miners were exultant and hopeful ; but a few, ut- 
terly discouraged, were about to return to the States. There were 
five thousand people in the Gregory Diggings, and hundreds more 
were pouring in daily. 

Mr, Greeley, Henry Villard of the Cincinnati Commercial and 
myself, spent two daj-s in examining the gulches and conversing 
with the workmen engaged in running sluices. Most of the com- 
panies reported to us that they were operating successfully. 
Then we joined in a detailed report, naming the members of each 
company and their former places of residence in ' the States,' (that 
any who desired might learn their reputation for truthfulness,) and 
adding their statements as to the number of men they were em- 
ploying and the average yield of their sluices per day. We en- 
deavored to give the shadows as well as the lights of the picture, 
recounting the hardships and perils of the long journey, and the 
bitter disappointment experienced by the unsuccessful many; and 
earnestly warning the public against another general and ill- 
advised rush to the mines. Little time is required to learn the 
great truth, that digging gold is about the hardest way on earth 
to obtain it ; that in this as in other pursuits great success is very 
rare. The report was widely copied throughout the country as 
the first specific, disinterested and trustworthy account of the 
uewly-discovered placers. 



1859.] FIRST MASS MEETING AT PIKE's PEAK. 183 

Mr. Greeley's presence afforded too good opportunity for speech- 
hearing, to be overlooked by his errant countrymen. That even- 
ing fifteen hundred people assembled, forming the first mass meet- 
ing ever held in the Rocky Mountains. It was a motley gathering 
in the open air, of men with long unkempt locks, shaggy beards, 
faces reduced by the sun to the color of a new brick, and bowie 
knives and revolvers hanging from their belts. They gathered in 
all the freedom of the frontier. Some were reclining upon the 
ground, some sitting upon stumps and the half-finished walls of 
new log buildings, and others perched upon the friendly limbs of 
neighboring trees. The presiding ofiicer occupied a log instead 
of a chair; and one of the speakers was clad in a full suit of 
buckskin with long fantastic fringes. The meeting, in a grove of 
statel}^ pines, was called to order as the light of the dying sun 
was falling upon the gashed and rugged joeaks like a benediction. 

Mr. G., received with enthusiastic cheers, spoke hopefully of 
the mines, though he thought they would not equal those of Cali- 
fornia; advocated the forming of a new State without the 
troublesome preliminary form of a Territory ; and urged his 
hearers to avoid drinking and gaming, and live as the parents, 
wives and children left at home would desire. It was one pur- 
pose of his trip to do every thing in his power toward hastening 
the Pacific railroad, which ought to have been built long before. 

After three final cheers for the editor, the probate judge of 
the county, was called up and made glowing predictions of a 
new Commonwealth, the real Keystone State of the Union, 
to spring here like Minerva from the brain of Jove. (This volu^ 
ble speaker did not remain to witness the fulfillment of his 
prophecy, but emigrated to Montana; and after being warned 
from that Territory by the vigilance committee for suspicious re- 
lations with a gang of murderers, took up his residence in Neva- 
da.) "When he had concluded, the assembled citizens were kind 
enough to call for me and to applaud with due enthusiasm my 
brief invocation to the American eagle, and apotheosis of the 
great Pacific railway of the future. Then the meeting adjourned, 
with cheers which made the old mountains rins:;. It must have 
astonished the wild elk and grizzly bears which until a month 
before had held undisputed sway. 



184 



FREAKS OF OUR ECCENTRIC MULES. 



[1859 



In a little tent ambitiously labeled the ' Mountain City Hotel,' 
six of us spent the night on the ground, 

" Suug 
As a bug 
In a rug,' 

Ijang so close that none of us could turn over separately. 

The next day as we descended from the mountains Mr. G. was 
so lame that he could barely hobble. One of his companions was 
badly bruised, being thrown from his steed and dragged over 
sharp rocks by the stirrup. Another, pitched from his mule by 
a broken girth and alighting on the top of his head upon a rock, 
naturally complained of seeing stars and declared himself the 

victim of misplaced 
^r^^^ confidence. A third 
half submerged by 
his stumbling animal 
while crossing Clear 
Creek, and quite cured 
of his belief in hydro- 
pathy, was wrung out 
and dried before an 
immigrant's fire. Af- 
ter supping and lodg- 
ing with some friend- 
ly travelers, we reach- 
ed Denver at seven in 
the morning, prepared to play ' the 
Serious Family ' to the satisfaction 
of the most critical. 

The excitement of the journey 
over, Mr. G's. wounded limb which 
had enjoyed no rest since the capsiz- 
ing of the coach, grew excessively painful and confining. The 
Denver House with its ceaseless noise and gambling, proved un- 
fiivorable to literary pursuits; so according to the custom of the 
country we 'jumped a cabin:' — selected the best empty one we 
could find, moved in our effects, and took possession. 




illSPLACED CONFIDENCE. 



1859.] OUR MOST EXTRAORDINARY LANDLORD. 185 

' Imagination fondly stoops to trace, 
The parlor splendors of that festive place.' 

It was twelve feet square, of hewn pine logs new and smootli, 
the cracks within chinked with wood and outside plastered with 
mud. A great fire-place of sticks and dried soil occupied one cor- 
ner. A single chair of elders fresh from the forest, with the bark 
still on, a little table of the same material, and the rare luxury of 
a mattress resting upon slats laid across from one log to another, 
constituted the furniture. The roof was of baked mud upon a 
layer of split logs and grass ; the floor of hard, smooth earth. 
No window invited adventurous burglars, and the solitary door 
which swung upon wooden hinges, opened to the touch of no key 
but a pen-knife. We extemporized a shelf from which a few 
curiousl}^ assorted books looked down with a bewildered air, 
carpeted the ground with coffee-sacks — and did we not take our 
ease in our inn ? 

A few days later, the owner of the cabin came down from the 
mines and looked in upon us quite unexpectedly; but observing 
that the nine points of the law were in our favor, he apologized 
humbly for his intrusion, (most obsequious and marvelous of land- 
lords !) begged us to make ourselves entirely at home, and then 
withdrew, to jump the best vacant cabin he could find, until the 
departure of his non-paying tenants. We design exhibiting him 
at the next world's fair as the best specimen of the Polite Gentle- 
man on the terrestrial globe. 

There was little business ; money was in great demand and 
loaned on collateral security at twenty-five per cent, a month. 

The experience of every mining region demonstrates that 
salt pork is the most nutritive and stimulating diet for miners, 
whose labor is the most exhausting in the whole world. All 
plains travelers also use it, on the theory of the shrewd philosopher, 
that no other substance contains ' so much board in so little com* 
pass.' As agriculture was not begun, vegetables were unattain- 
able for love or money. Late in the season however, a few enor- 
mous watermelons appeared in market, selling at two or three dob 
lars apiece. The chief meat was antelope, always abundant at 
four cents per pound. Though more tasteless than the flesh of the 
deer, it is pleasant and nutritive. 



186 'OUR BEST society' I,N DENVER. [1859. 

Denver society was a strange medley. There were Americans 
from every quarter of the Union, Mexicans, Indians, half- 
breeds, trappers, speculators, gamblers, desperadoes, broken-down 
politicians and honest men. Almost every day was enlivened by 
its little shooting match. "While the great gaming saloon was 
crowded with people, drunken ruffians sometimes fired five or six 
shots from their revolvers, frightening everybody pell-mell out of 
the room, but seldom wounding any one. One day I heard the 
bar-keeper politely ask a man lying upon a bench to remove. The 
recumbent replied to the request with his revolver. Indeed firing 
at this bar- tender was a common amusement among the guests. 
At first he bore it laughingly, but one day a shot grazed his ear, 
whereupon, remarking that there was such a thing as carrying a 
joke too far and that this was ' about played out,' he buckled on 
two revolvers and swore he would kill the next man who took 
aim at him. He was not troubled afterward. 

Gaming was universal. Denver and Auraria, (now West Den- 
ver,) contained about one thousand people, with three hundred 
buildings, nearly all of hewn pine logs. One third were un- 
finished and roofless, having been erected the previous win- 
ter for speculative purposes. There were very few glass windows 
or doors and but two or three board floors. The nearest saw-mill 
was forty miles awa}', and the occupants of the cabins lived upon 
the native earth, hard, smooth and clean-swept. One lady, by sew- 
ing together corn -sacks for a carpet and covering her log walls 
with sheets and table cloths, gave to her mansion an appearance of 
rare luxur}^ Chairs were glories yet to come. Stools tables and 
pole-bedsteads were the staple furniture, while rough boxes did 
duty as bureaus and cupboards. Hearths and fire-places were of 
adobe, as in Utah California and Mexico. Chimneys were of 
sticks of wood piled up like children's cob-houses and plastered 
with mud. A few roofs were covered with shingles split by hand, 
but most were of logs spread with prairie grass and covered with 
earth. They turned water well, even during the daily showers of 
June and July. During the rest of the 3'ear rain is unknown. 

Between my cabin and the Denver House were a dozen Indian 
lodges, enlivened by squaws dressing the skins of wild animals or 
cooking puppies for dinner, naked children plajdng in the hot 








AlikipRfN Oj 






— BIROS ttC Vll*t. 

SKVKN VIKWS IN DKXVhK (JOLOKADO 1859. Pa-c ISG. 



1859.] A FINISHED SPECIMEN OF A GAMBLER. 187 

sand and braves lounging on the ground, wearing no clothing 
except a narrow strip of cloth about the hips. 

Hundreds of immigrants passed through daily; their white, un- 
endino- caravans stretchiug across the river to the foot of the 
range. Daily too a great refluent wave rolled in from tho 
mountains — dissatisfied miners who sold their superfluous provis- 
ions and tools at less than cost and started for California or turned 
homeward. 

The Denver House was a long low one-stor}'- edifice, one hun- 
dred and thirty feet by thirty-six, with log walls and windows 
and roof of white sheeting. In its spacious saloon, the whole 
width of the building, the earth was well sprinkled to keep down 
dust. The room was always crowded with swarthy men armed 
and ill rough costumes. The bar sold en^'rnious qaautities of 
cigars and liquors. At half a dozen tables the gamblers were 
always busy, day and evening. One in woolen shirt and jockey 
cap drove a thriving business at three-card-monte, which netted 
him about one hundred dollars per day. Standing behind his 
little table he would select three cards from his pack, show their 
faces to the crowd, and thus begin : 

' Here you are, gentlemen ; this ace of hearts is the winning 
card. Watch it closely. Follow it wnth your ej-e as I shuflQe. 
Here it is, and now here, now here and now,' (laying the three on 
the table with faces down) — ' where? If yo*u point it out the first 
time you win ; but if you miss 3'ou lose. Here it is you see,' 
(turning it up ;) ' now watch it again,' (shufiling.) 'This ace of 
hearts gentlemen is the wnnning card. I take no bets from pau- 
pers, cripples or orphan children. The ace of hearts. It is my 
regular trade, gentlemen — to move my hands quicker than you^ 
eyes. I always have two chances to your one. The ace of hearts. 
If your sight is quick enough, you beat me and I pay ; if not, I 
beat you and take your money. The ace of hearts ; who will go 
me twenty ?' 

By this time some bystander who has watched the winning 
card closely is confident that he can point it out. It seems per- 
fectly simple. Beside, he noticed that one corner was sliglitly 
turned up; and is it not there face downward with the corner 
Btill elevated? Confidently he throw's down a twenty-dollar gold 



188 AX UNFAILING SUPPLY OF VICTIMS. [1859 

piece. The gambler covers it witli another. The victim points 
to the cai'd with a raised corner when lo! it is not the ace of 
hearts after all. At the last moment the operator dexterously 
tui-ned down the corner of that and turned up the corner of 
another ! 

' My fi'iend, you have lost. It is very plain and simple, but you 
can't always tell. Here you are, gentlemen; the ace, and the ace. 
Who will go me twenty dollars?' 

The last sufferer, from sheer anger, bets again and loses again. 
After being mulcted of a hundred dollars he goes his way. But 
there is always a fresh victim ready to take his place. 

Sometimes the gambler permits a stranger to win once or twice 
for tlie sake of leading him on. Again a bystander familiar with 
the game wins two or three times in succession ; then the sport- 
ing orator refuses to take more bets from him. When the game 
flags, a secret confederate or ' pigeon' in the crowd offers a few 
wagers and wins, refunding the money when they are alone. 

As a class, the gamblers were entertaining in conversation, had 
curious experiences to relate, evinced great knowledge of hu- 
man nature, and were specially kind to each other in misfortune. 
Some were gentlemanly in manners. Like all men who gain 
money easily, they were open-handed and charitable. I never 
saw a place where more dollars could be obtained in less time for 
a helpless woman or orphan than among those gaming tables. 

I saw the probate judge of the county lose thirty Denver lots 
in less than ten minutes, at cards, in this public saloon on Sunday 
morning; and afterward observed the county sheriflF pawning his 
revolver for twenty dollars to spend in betting at faro There 
were no women and children ; and hence none of that puolic 
opinion without which few men can stand alone. 

One New Yorker still under thirty-five, had been successively 
owner of a Lake Erie steamer, captain of a Cape Cod fishing craft, 
professional gambler in Cuba, real-estate speculator in Leaven- 
worth and stage driver" on the great plains. Here he was a suc- 
cessful lawyer. But when last I saw him he had been a cripple 
for months — the result of an accidental shot from the pistol of his 
law partner, who had taken a drop too much. 

Among the Denver pioneers I found a relative whom I had last 



1859.] THE TURNS OF FORTUNE'S WHEEL. 189 

met as a New York wholesale merchant, in the glossiest of broad- 
cloth and the most spotless of linen. Now he wore the half- 
Mexican, half-Indian costume of the country. One of the chief 
thoroughfares, Blake street, still bears his name. 

Denver had its weekly Roclaj Mountain News. Editor and 
printers cooked ate and slept in the one room of the log building 
where articles were written, tj^pe set and paper worked off. 

There were no public mails. Private enterprise is always far 
in advance of Government, and the express company brougbt all 
letters from the Missouri river — one thousand per day — for twenty^ 
five cents each. 

There was no paper money and the smallest coin in circulation 
was twenty-five cents. The people of the frontier have never 
taken kindly to coppers. In 1794, when the first barrel of them 
was introduced in Cincinnati by a merchant, the citizens were dis- 
gusted and his brother traders with difficulty restrained from 
mobbing him. In Kansas three-cent pieces passed for five cents, 
and in New Mexico eight dimes for one dollar. Says a European 
writer: * Money must be very plentiful and people very prosper- 
ous, where the smallest coin is five or ten cents.' 

The thousand Arapahoes encamped in the heart of the city 
were ordinarily peaceful, but dangerous when intoxicated. One 
evening I saw a brawny brave, with a club thwack two of his 
drunken brethren upon their heads, so lustily that the blows were 
heard a quarter of a mile away. Then musing for some minutes, 
he solemnly ejaculated : 

' Whisky — bad ! Make Indian bad.' 

After which bit of wisdom he walked thoughtfully away. In 
ten minutes however, he returned with a bottle and a silver dol- 
lar and begged me to buy whisky for him. Like Ilosea Bige- 
low he was ' in favor of the Maine Law, but aain' its enforce- 
mcnt.' 

The Arapahoes, always treacherous and bloodthirsty, are now 
almost extinct from wars and small-pox — that terrible scourge of 
their race. They are thoroughly migratory. At a moment's no- 
tice they 

' Fold their tents like the Arabs 
And as silently steal away.' 
13 



190 ALMOST ONE OF COOPER's HEROES. [1859. 

They sometimes devour the entrails of animals ; and I have seen 
squaws and children pluck and eat greedily vermin from their 
own heads. Chastity is unknown among their women ; and nearly 
all suffer from loathsome diseases. Young girls are sold by their 
parents to Indians or white men — usually in exchange for one 
horse ; but special beauty or aristocratic lineage sometimes com- 
mands four or five. 

The savage like Falstaff is a coward on instinct — also treacher- 
ous, filthy and cruel. But one chief, the ' Little Eaven,' was the 
nearest approximation 1 ever met to the Ideal Indian. He had a 
fine manly form and a human, trustworthy face. To spend an 
hour in our cabin was his custom always of an afternoon ; and, 
though his entire ignorance of English was only equaled by my 
utter innocence of Arapahoe, we held pleasant communion to- 
gether. Our conversations were carried on by signs and the very 
few words we had in common. The tongue was weak, but the 
gesticulation eloquent. 

Usually by some means we could make each other compre- 
hend ; but twice or thrice we became, as actors say, hopelessly 
' stuck.' Then my visitor sent for one ' Left Hand,' a linguist; for 
as Day & Martin the great blacking manufacturers, ' kept a poet,' 
so the chief of the Arapahoes maintained an interpreter. Left 
Hand spoke English fluently, having acquired it from traders in 
boyhood, and soon extricated us from our conversational quag- 
mire. I will report from memory one of our interviews : 

Little Eaven enters ; salutes me with a cordial grunt and a shake 
of the hand. I place him in the only chair our cabin affords, 
perching myself upon the table ; fill his long pipe with Virginia 
tobacco, light a cigar on my own account; and then ensues a 
period of solemn and smoky silence. An occasional remark is 
ventured about the Utes, the weather, the mines; gradually we 
become communicative and at last familiar. He studies one of 
my maps with great curiosity and attention ; inquii-es earnestly for 
the whereabouts upon it of the great father at Washington ; and 
asks other questions which show how vague stories of the won- 
ders of civilization have thrilled his simple heart, as fabulous 
tales of the New World thrilled the Spaniards of old. At la8t 
he folds the map and interrogates me on personal matters : 



1859.] A VISIT FROM THE ARAPAHOE CHIEF. 



191 



Who is m}' lame companion lying upon tlie bunk? 
I repl}^ that be is a great cljief and named the 'Goose Quill,' 
endeavoring to explain that bis realm and authority are purely 




A VISIT FKOM LITTLE RAVEX. 



intellectual, but giving up in despair when the ^aven interrupts 
me to ask bow many horses be owns ! 

Where is my lodge ? 

I signify that it is by the great waters a hundred sleeps away, 
at which he gazes in wonder, tinged with that incredulity which 
civilized persons sometimes manifest for the tales of travelers. 

How many squav/s and papooses have I ? 

When I have replied with due humility, be exultantly assures 
me that he is the happy husband of seven squaws and the proud 
parent of ten papooses. The comparison is odious ; be evidently 
feels his social superiority 

How many horses have I? 



19'2 A CONVERSATION WITH LITTLE RAVEN. [1869. 

Sorrowfully I admit tliat I can lay claim to no solitary piece of 
horse-flesb. The Eaven answers by pointing triumphantly at his 
thirty sleek ponies grazing on the adjacent prairie. As one's 
wealth and position in Arapahoe eyes depend solely upon the 
number of his wives and horses, I feel that the Raven is becoming 
directly personal and inferentially abusive. So I place him in the 
witness-box, and become questioner myself: 

How many revolvers has he ? 

He shrugs his shoulders — a pantomimic cipher. I produce 
Colt's new patent which he examines with great curiosity and ad- 
miration ; handling it cautiously, as if it were an infernal machine, 
and showing a childish satisfliction not unmingled with terror, as 
I discharge the five barrels in rapid succession. 

How much, he ventures to ask, did it cost? 

I mention an almost fabulous sum and his respect for me is 
visibly augmented. Even the Indian is moved by the almighty 
dollar — or rather the almighty half-dollar ; for that is the only de 
nomination of specie in which he will receive payments. I follow 
vip my advantage : 

How many locomotives has he ? 

A mournful shake of the head is his only response ; and while 
I convey to him crude ideas of the fiery, untiring monster which 
■ivill carry me further in one sleep (day) than his fleetest horse can 
bear him in ten, he manifests intense interest, signifying that he 
has heard of the prodigy before, but never saw him. The im- 
pression left upon his mind, that I am the individual owner of 
several of these monsters, I am careful not to dissipate ; and 
thereafter he treats me with the profound deference due a ' big In- 
jun' and a fit associate of the Arapahoe monarch. And so, the 
topics of the day exhausted, with another cordial hand-shaking, 
he takes his departure. 

Alas for Little Eaven ! Immortality did not hedge the king; 
and a year later he was killed in battle with the Utes. 



1859.] LITTLE RAVEX AS A DEVOTEE. 193 



CHAPTER XVI. 

Little Eaven was not only brave, but devout. One day seek- 
ing bim in his own village, I discovered tbat with several other 
warriors he was abut up in a low lodge, by which two young sen- 
tinels kept guard. The weather was intensely hot; the lodge with- 
out a single aperture and covered with masses of bufialo robes. 
Beside it upon a little mound of fresh earth were the skin of a 
wolf and the horns of a buffalo. Soon eight perspiring,, naked 
braves emerged and threw themselves upon the ground,, utterly 
exhausted. They had been taking a vapor bath, to propitiate 
their 'medicines.' 

That night the entire band including the women paraded the 
town, pausing before manj- dwellings and drumming upon a cir- 
cular piece of buffalo hide stretched over a wooden frame, while 
they chanted a weird refrain. Early the next morning the braves 
started on the war path against the Utes; and this ceremony was 
an invocation to the whites to protect the squaws and children 
during their absence. 

The language of the Arapahoes is harsh and guttural. Dubray, 
an old trapper who had spent several 3'ears among them, spoke it 
fluently, but thought the tongue of a tribe in New Mexico much 
more difficult. He said : 

' I lived among the Apaches eleven years, and only learned two 
of their words. I will pronounce them ; and if you can repeat 
either immediately after hearing it, I will give you fifty dollars !' 

He uttered them deliberately, but though they were not com- 
posed of more than four or five syllables, I was utterly unable to 
remember them. 

Philologists conjecture that the language of manual signs ori- 



194 INDIAN SIGNALS, — PEACE OR HOSTILITY. [1859. 

ginated in tbe infancy of the race, before articulate words. Deaf 
and dumb persons from different quarters of the globe on meeting 
for the first time, converse readily by signs which seem arbitrary, 
but which must be founded upon the natural relation between ges- 
ture and thought. 

There is a dialect of hands arms and features, in common vogue 
between mountain men and Indians. A trapper meets a dozen 
savages, all of different tribes, and though no two have ten ar- 
ticulate words in common, they converse for hours in dumb show, 
comprehending each other perfectly, and often relating incidents 
which cause uproarious laughter or excite the sterner passions. 
To a novice, tliese signs are no more intelliirible than so many va- 
garies of St. Vitus' dance; but, like all mj^steries, they are simple 
and significant — after one comprehends them. The o\\\y one I 
recollect requiring no explanation, is the S3'mbol f )r Sioux In- 
dians — drawing the finger across the throat, like a knife. It is an 
apt and epigrammatic delineation of their blood-thirsty character. 

The Arapahoes or 'Smellers' are indicated by seizing the ncjse 
with the thumb and forefinger; the Comanches or 'Snakes' by 
waving the hand like the crawling of a reptile; the Cheyennes or 
'Cut-arms 'by drawing the finger across the arm; the Pawnees 
or 'Wolves' by placing a forefinger on^ach side of the forehead 
pointing like the sharp ears of the wolf; the Crows by clapping 
the palms of the hands in imitation of flapping wings; women by 
moving the hand down toward the shoulder to indicate their long 
flowing tresses; whites by drawing the finger over the forehead 
in suggestion of the hat. 

, General Marcy's entertaining work, 'Army Life on the Border,' 
also states that to ascertain whether strangers at a distance are 
friends or enemies, some tribes raise the right hand with the palm 
in front, and slowly move it forward and back. This is a com- 
mand to halt and will be obeyed if the approaching party be 
peaceful. Then the right hand is again raised and slowly moved 
to right and left, as an inquiry : 'Who are you?' The strangers 
reply by giving the sign of their tribe, or by raising both hands 
grasped as in friendly greeting, or with the forefingers firmly locked 
together in emblem of peace. If enemies, they refuse to halt, or 
place the shut hand against the forehead in sign of hostility. 



1859.] EXPRESSIVE FEATURES AND GESTURES. 195 

All Indian languages are so imperfect that even when two 
members of the same tribe converse, half the intercourse is carried 
on by signs. Mountain men become so accustomed to this, that 
when talking in their mother tongue upon the most abstract sub- 
jects, their arms and bodies xoill participate in the conversation. 
Like the Kanackas of the Sandwich Islands they are unable to talk 
with their hands tied. 

Thus the Greeks carry on long dialogues in silence; and the 
Italians when in fear of being overheard often stop in the middle 
of a sentence, to finish it in pantomime. It is even related that a 
great conspiracy on the Mediterranean was organized not only 
without vocal utterance, but by facial signs without employing the 
hand at all. How much more expressive than spoken words is a 
shrug of the shoulders, a scowl, or the turning up of the nose I 
The supple tongue may deceive ; but few can discipline the ex- 
pression of the face into a persistent falsehood; and no man can tell 
a lie — an absolute, unmitigated lie — with his eyes. If closely 
and steadily watched they will reveal the truth, be it love or hate 
or indifference. 

For three weeks after our return from the mountains Mr. Gree- 
ley lay prostrate with his lame leg. Indeed the injury was so 
severe, that a year later he still limped. 

But on the twenty-first of June, he continued the then danger- 
ous journey across the continent. In Green river he lost his 
valise ; but it was fished out by an honest emigrant and months 
later, reached its owner in New York. At Salt Lake he spent 
several days among the Saints: then pressed on through the 
present State of Nevada, (containing when he traversed it less 
than a hundred white inhabitants,) and across the Sierra Nevadas 
to California. There he was visited wnth the traditional annoy- 
ance of plains travelers — boils which covered his body, compel- 
ling him to return home by steamer instead of the Butterfield over- 
land route. 

After he left me Denver grew monotonous and I again started 
for the mountains. At Clear creek under the vast shadow of 
Table Mountain I found a new town springing up called Golden 
City. Of course its founders regarded it as an embryo Babylon. 
Golden City ! How smoothly fell the unctuous syllables from the 



196 



HO FOR THE MOUNTAIXS AGAIXI 



[1859 



lips. How suggestive of merchant princes and pockets full of 
rocks. The El Dorado which Pizarro sought was studded 
with golden palaces and paved with precious stones — ' the City of 
the Gilded King;' but our democratic El Dorado must be the city 
of the gilded people. 

Two miles farther, a few rudimentary log huts were named 
Golden Gate. The hill-road of three weeks before was already 

abandoned. I 
entered the 
mountains by 
a newlj-'Cut 
thoroughfare, 
threading the 
easy can^'on 
of a tumbling, 
foamy brook, 
inclosed by 
gloomy walls 
more than a 
thousand feet 
in hi "lit. 

The narrow 
pathway re- 
sounded with 
the tread of 
many feet, 
and un elastic 
fiom weariness and disap- 
pointment.; others keeping 
step to the jubilant song, 
Horses oxen and mules strug- 
gled on, heavily loaded with shovels, sacks of flour sugar and 
meat. }*rnny exhausted animals lay dead or djnng along the way. 
The trail wound through grassy valleys, among enormous 
rocks, beside mountains with icy spring^s gushing from their sides, 
and up and down rugged hills studded with tall pines and white- 
stemed aspens. 

These cheerful surroundings were succeeded by a dreary black 




some 






BUKNED TO DEATH. 



' I'm bound for the land of cold. 



1859.] DEATH FROM THE MOUNTAIN FIRES. 197 

expanse. Fires had raged for two weeks and were still burning. 
It was impossible to check them, for the ground was half covered 
with dead fallen trunks, and thickly carpeted with successive lay- 
ers of pine needles and pitch, which had accumulated for years 
and were like tinder to the hungry flames. The unendurable heat 
and suftbcating smoke drove me far out of the road. In one ravine 
the miners had found three charred, blackened corpses. The vic- 
tims were evidently running for a place of safety when the chang- 
ing wind blinded them with smoke, and the fiery death overtook 
them. Their clothing was consumed ; their gun-barrels, a case- 
knife and a quantity of gold dust were the only articles near 
them. Even their dog had been unable to escape, and his bones 
la}^ beside theirs. Several other corpses were discovered the same 
day ; and the number of deaths from the fires was computed more 
than twenty. Who shall sing in saddest strain of the nameless 
graves which thicker than mile-stones, dot the old emigrant roads 
from Missouri to California, and wherever men have sought for 
gold form great cities of the dead? 

On the route I encountered my friend Little Raven with his 
braves, returning from their expedition. Their buckskin quivers 
and rifle-cases were as white and their moccasin fringes as gay 
as ever ; but the warriors were sad and taciturn, for the Utes had 
fled ami tlicir war path proved bloodless. 

I dined under a tree with several hospitable Arkansans who 
were feasting upon raw salt pork. Cooking a slice to a crisp 
on the end of a long stick before the camp fire, I found it pal- 
atable; but when I asked for bread, they gave me a stone. I 
could neither bite break nor cut the solid biscuit; but after soak- 
ing in the brook one at last succumbed to my bowie knife. 

In the evening^ I reached the disr^ino-s. A sinsrle month had 
changed them greatly. An incredible amount of work had been 
expended in seeking for gold. The same labor would have con- 
verted hundreds of miles of Kansas or Minnesota prairies into one 
continuous garden. Gregory Gulch now rejoiced in the hum and 
bustle of a citv. Eavines were vocal with the crash of falling 
pine and hemlock, and the ring of hammer ax pick and spade. 
The women had increased to more than a hundred. Every 
mechanical trade and every traffic was pursued. A single 'town' 



198 EVENING SCENES AMONG THE MINERS. [1859. 

lot had sold for five hundred dollars. When I asked a miner if 
there was any church, he replied : 

* No ; but we are going to build one before next Sunday.' 

Erecting a temple of worship in a week was in thorough ac- 
cordance with the prevailing spirit. 

Thousands of miners were busy at the sluices, which now num- 
bered several hundred. All reported gold-bearing rock abundant ; 
but as yet there were no mills for crushing the quartz within a 
thousand miles. The 'pay dirt' was brought from the hill sides 
to the sluices in coffee sacks, borne upon the shoulders or di'awn 
on rough sleds along smooth freshly-peeled pine trunks — a rudi- 
mental inclined-plane railvva}^ 

Several miners were each taking out two hundred dollars per 
day; but not more than one in four was obtaining five dollars, 
By the established regulations the size of a claim was fifty 
feet by oneliundred ; and some were selling at from ten to forty 
thousand dollars. Generally only a few hundred dollars of the 
purchase money was paid down; if the claim did not yield the 
balance it was never liquidated. 

Climbing a hill side, I obtained a vivid evening view of the 
Alpine city. Beyond it a fire was raging upon an isolated peak. 
The flame swept evenly higher and higher, till at the summit, 
striking a single dead tree, it ran fiercelj^ up the trunk into a 
perfect cone of fire, against a background of mountain and cloud. 

At my feet the valley was lighted with scores of camp-fires, 
casting the shadows of tall pines and firs in every direction, and 
throwing a lurid glare upon the swarthy faces of the miners. 
Some were cooking in the open air, some taking their evening 
meal upon tables of pine bark, and others sitting upon logs or 
reclining upon the ground smoking and talking. 

From one camp issued the lively notes of a violin ; and from 
another, ' Home, sweet home ' floating forth upon the evening air 
in a low, plaintive voice, told that the heart of the singer was 
with dear ones far away. 

On Sunday morning, a walk through the diggings revealed 
nearly all the miners disguised in clean clothing. Some were 
reading and writing letters, some ministering to the sick, and some 
enacting the part of Every-man-his-own-washer- woman — rubbing 



1859.] THE GREGORY DIGGINGS ON SUNDAY. 199 

valiantly away at the tub. Several hundred men, in the open 
air, were attending public religious worship — perhaps the first 
ever held in the Rocky Mountains.. They were roughly clad, 
displaying weapons at their belts; and represented every sec- 
tion of the Union and almost every nation of the earth. They 
sat upon logs and stumps, a most attentive congregation, while 
the clergyman upon a rude log platform, preached from the 
text : ' Behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy.' It was 
an impressive spectacle — that motley gathering of gold-seekers 
among the mountains, a thousand miles from home and civiliza- 
tion, to hear the ' good tidings ' forever old and yet forever new. 

During the two weeks I spent in the mines the unhealthy diet 
and miasma arising from the freshly-broken earth, produced much 
fever. Many a poor fellow weak and listless, on straw bunk in 
squalid cabin, waited the approach of that grim speoter with 
whom the ancients found prayers and sacrifices alike unavailmg. 
Many with folded arms and rigid faces were consigned Dy stran- 
gei'S to hill-side graves, with no child's voice to prattle its simple 
sorrow, no woman's tear to bedew their memory. 

We slept upon the ground under fir boughs. The sweetest of 
all rest is on the bosom of mother earth, watched by sentinel stars, 
lulled by the sad-hearted pine and falHng water. 

I found in one camp a party of Kansas acquaintances living 
upon ham and eggs. The latter were a rare luxury, costing two 
dollars and fifty cents per dozen. My friends had packed several 
barrels in Leavenworth, pouring liquid lard around the eggs, 
which forming a mold enabled them to sustain with admirable 
composure their wagon -journe}' of seven hundred miles. 

Flour sold at twenty dollars per hundred, and milk at fifty 
cents a quart. Flapjacks were the substitute for bread. I think 
enough were made during the season to pave the road from 
Leavenworth to the mines. At every camp one saw perspiring 
men bending anxiously over the griddle, or turning the cake 
by tossing it skillfully in the air. To a looker-on, such masculine 
feats were decidedly amusing. Four years later, in rebel prisons, 
I found practical cookery far less entertaining. 

Many professional men were hard at work in the diggings. 
One often heard sunburnt miners while resting upon their 



200 INTELLECTUAL, ARGUMENTATIVE MINERS. [1859, 

Spades, discussing Shakspeare, tlie classics, religion, and political 
economy. 

The stream beds abounded 
in mica, which old miners call 
' fools' gold.' A shrewd Ger- 
man washed out and secreted 
an immense quantity, suppos- 
ing he had discovered a new 
Golconda. Upon learning 
that it was not the precious 
metal he started back in dis- 
gust to the Pennsylvania coal 
mines. 

When the melancholy John 
Phenix occupied the tripod of 
the San Diego Ilercdd, he ad- 
vertised for a lad to bring 
water, black his boots and 
keep the sanctum in order — 
one by whom obtaining a 
knowledge of the business w^ould be deemed a sufficient compen- 
sation. The caution which he added — 'No young woman in dis- 
guise need a])ply ' — was needful in a mining country, I encoun. 
tered in the diggings several W'omen dressed in masculine apparel, 
and each telling some romantic story of her past life. One aver- 
red that she had twice crossed the plains to California with droves 
of cattle. Some were adventurers; all were of the wretched class 
against which society shuts its iron doors, bidding them hasten 
un-cared-for to destruction. 

The Utes* killed a number of the miners, William M. 
Slaughter a Denver pioneer, was out prospecting with two friends, 
when these savages, after dining wnth them in apparent friendli- 
ness, attacked the party, killing and scalping two. Slaughter 




FLAPJACKS. 



* Or ' Utahs ' — an Indian word signifying ' Dwellers among the Mountain Tops.' 
Those living near the Great Salt Lake were called * Pah ' (or water,) ' Utes,' — cor- 
rupted into 'Pi-Utes.' The Utahs were once a powerful nation, though embracing 
some wretched bands of Diggers who subsisted upon roots, worms and grasslioppcrs. 
vid were perhaps the lowest of the human race. 



1859.] PREDICTIONS OF GOLD AND AGRICULTURE. 201 

Ihougli' repeatedly shot at, sprang into the bushes, concealed 
himself two daj'S, and finally escaped. 

After spending six weeks in the new gold region, my published 
impression of the mines was thus summed up : 

' I have absolute confidence in the permanency extent and richness of these dig- 
gings. I believe that the mountain ranges, from Salt Lake to Mexico^ abound in gold 
and the secondary metals, and that their yield will be the richest ever known in the 
world. Yet those who are doing moderately well at home should remember that not 
more than one man in ten meets with success in any mining countrj', and tliat 
the prairies of Kansas Nebraska and Missouri oiler much stronger inducements to 
settlers than the gold regions.' 

I also hazarded the prediction that with proper cultivation the 
vallej's of the Platte and its tributaries within fifty miles of Denver, 
would produce enough small grains and vegetables to support a 
population of two hundred thousand. This was scoffed at ; and the 
arid sands did look unpromising. But now the settlers of Colo- 
rado have tested the agriculture of their new State, and yearly 
they raise enough farm produce for their own consumption. 

Returning down the mountains I found opportunity to contrast 
the two classes common to all gold regions. The new-comers 
going into the mines were sanguine and cheery, climbing with 
elastic step, and beguiling the wa}^ with song and laughter. But 
the stampeders turning homeward, convinced that gold digging 
was hard and uni'emunerative, left their packs and shovels behind, 
and trudged mechanically with downcast woe-begone faces. 

Reaching Denver again, I found the 'jumped cabin' lonely, and 
the novelties of the city exhausted. So early in July I started 
eastward. The stage line had been transferred from the Republi- 
can to the northern route. For four hundred miles from Denver 
it followed down the valley of that long tributary of the Missouri, 
which the Indians call the Nebraska, and French traders named 
the Platte — both appellations signifying shallow. They are 
specially fitting; for though the broad stream appears sufficient to 
float the navies of the world, it averages less than a foot in depth 
and abounds in treacherous quicksands. Many discouraged miners 
were attempting to descend in boats, but sooner or later all were 
skiff- wrecked. One Boston physician lost his boat and entire 
outfit, and whe-a I saw him had just escaped from the river 



202 



A SHREWD CALIFORNIA EMIGRANT. 



[1859. 



minus every article of personal property except a single shirt 
which he ' happened to have about him at the time.' 

The Platte mosquitoes 
covered our mules with 
blood, and lacerated me 
through the thick sleeves 
of two woolen shirts. Our 
untiring coach rolled day 
and night, halting only for 
meals and changes of 
teams. 

We passed the Cache a 
la Poudre (Burial of the 
Powder) creek, named 
from an old French trap- 
per, who years before inter- 
red a quantity of powder to 
conceal it from the Indians. 
Cache (to hide,) is a very 
common word through- 
out the far West for any 
thing concealed in the 
ground. In 1848 a shrewd 
California emigrant, whose cattle died near Fort Laramie, cached 
sundry casks of brandy by the road-side ; piled the earth in the 
form of a grave ; erected a head-board and inscribed upon it the 
name, age, nativity and virtues of a fabulous traveler, representing 
that he died of cholera. The ruse succeeded admirably ; after 
reaching San Francisco he sold the spirits at a large profit to a 
person who returned and exhumed them. 

At the South Platte Crossing where our road struck the old 
emigrant trail from the Missouri to Salt Lake, we found several 
lodges of Sioux Indians, who termed our mail coach the ' paper- 
wagon,' the little log post-office the ' paper house,' and our driver 
the ' king of the mules.' 

Among thousands of returning emigrants we passed one jovial 
party with a huge charcoal sketch of an elephant upon their wagon 
cover, labeled : ' What we saw at Pike's Peak.' 




GOING INTO THE MINES. 



1859.] 



BEAUTY OF OUR INDIAN CORN. 



203 



The Platte valley, level as a floor from the Rocky Mountains to 
the Missouri, is the best natural route for a railway in the world. 
Though without timber 

it is well supplied with .-~=:.^-. .-^^.^^ ♦ 

grass, and it ranges from 
five to fifteen miles in 
width. 

At Fort Kearnev, a 
Federal military post with 
wooden and adobe bar- 
racks, our road left the 
Platte. Soon the soil grew 
less sandy and more fertile. 
After we ci'ossed the Blue 
rivers, dram-shops and pa- 
per cities — advance guards 
of civilization — began to 
appear ; then occasional 
farms; then live towns and 
flourishing settlements. 
We were in the world 
again. Coming from rug. coming out. 

ged mountains and dreary 

deserts, the first grain field seemed to me the most beautiful of 
gardens. IIow little we appreciate the beauty of Indian corn ! 
Few of our poets deign to mention it, though Holmes has a pass- 
ing tribute : 

'The green-haired maize, her silken tresses laid 
In soft luxuriance on her harsh brocade.' 

A German florist after exhibiting to an American his rarest 
plants, added: 

'Now I will show you the most beautiful of all;' and then con- 
ducted the visitor to a stalk of Indian corn. The American re- 
plied contemptuously that he had ridden for fifty miles through 
unbroken fields of that plant ; but the German was not for wrong. 

We reached Leavenworth in six days and twenty hours from 
Denver, then the quickest trip ever made. 




20-i THE GREAT illSSOUKI IKON il UIs^T AINS. [1859. 



CHAPTER XVII. 

Next I visited the iron region of Missouri, eighty miles south 
of St. Louis, embracing Pilot Knob, Iron Mountain, and Shep- 
herd's Mountain. These are eastern spurs of the Ozark hills or 
high table-lands which range from one thousand to one thousand 
five hundred feet above sea level. 

The St. Louis and Iron Mountain railway terminates at Pilot 
Knob, a conical hill of solid ore six hundred feet high, and cover- 
ing three hundred and sixty acres. Only two furnaces were in 
operation, turning out about thirty tons of pig-iron per day. The 
sides of the mountain are covered with oak hickorj^ and ash sap- 
lings. The summit is a mass of enormous bowlders fifty feet high, 
and upheaved into every conceivable position. Some stand erect, 
sharply defined pillars. Two, a few feet apart, form a gigantic 
natural gatewa}^ Another huge slab leaning against a solid wall 
constitutes a picturesque cave. Though exposed to the atmos- 
phere for centuries, these bowlders contain fifty per cent, of iron. 
Below the surface, the rock contains sixty per cent. 

The miners were digging horizontally into the mountain, drill- 
ing, blasting, and prying off great fragments of rock which fell 
crashing over a little precipice. In the pit below, some were 
breaking up these fragments with sledge hammers ; others loading 
them into cars which conveyed the ore by an inclined-plane rail- 
way to furnaces at the base. 

In European mines the clothing of workmen is carefully 
examined at night, to see that they do not carry away ore. But 
here, a few hundred blocks as large as a dwelling house would not 
be missed. The laborers were French, German and Irish. 

Five miles further north is the Iron Mountain — a slis-ht eleva- 

O 



1859.] 



QUARRYING OUT THE IROX ORE. 



205 



tion over wbicli the railway to St. Louis passes. Busy laborers 
were blasting out and breaking tbe ore, witbin a few yards of tbe 




track. In 1833, 
tbis mountain 
was ' entered ' 
in tbe land- 
office at one 
dollar and a 
quarter an acre. 



IRON MINERS AT WORK. 



Tbree years 
later, tbe en- 
tire tract sold 
for six bun- 
dred dollars. 
Its present 
value is in- 



calculable; for it is tbe largest and ricbest mass of iron yet 
found upon tbe globe. Its base covers five bundred acres. 
Tbe ore, wbicb contains seventy-one per cent, of pure iron, bas 
been penetrated nearly four bundred feet below tbe surface, witb 
no sign of exbaustion even at tbat deptb. 

In reducing, crude blocks one or two feet in diameter are 
placed upon a foundation of logs, in alternate layers of cbarcoal 
and ore, until tbey form a buge pile. For a niontb tbey are 

14 



206 TWENTY-SEVEN HUNDRED, FAHRENHEIT. [1859. 

exposed to a fire as hot as they can endure without melting. This 
expels impurities, and leaves the ore brittle and easily broken into 
lumps three or four inches thick. 

It is next hauled to the furnaces and cast into their fiery jaws 
together with limestone and charcoal in proportions varying with 
its quality. The furnaces are either ' hot blast ' or ' cold blast,' 
according to the strong currents of hot or cold air pumped into 
them to supply oxygen, without which the ore would turn to 
'cinder,' yielding no iron. The heat is two thousand seven hun- 
dred degrees Fahrenheit. 

The cinder, separating from the iron, rises to the surface of the 
molten mass, and is skimmed off. Some of it hardens into a dark 
mass resembling coke, coarse glass or variegated marble. But 
when the charges and blasts are properly adjusted, it is white as 
snow and like the most exquisite moss suddenly petrified. 

The ore remains in the furnace some twelve hours. Then from 
the bottom of the great crucible it pours a red, glowing stream 
into molds of sand where it hardens into ' pigs.' The workmen 
guide these dazzling currents of liquid fire into their proper chan- 
nels with long-handled hoes. 

By night the furnace buildings, — with their brick arches, black- 
ened roofs, clouds of smoke, fiery torrents and sooty workmen 
darting hither and thither, catching lurid gleams on their dark 
faces, — are grotesquely suggestive of Pandemonium, and contrast 
sharply with the white villages and the dark wooded hills. 

Shepherd's Mountain contains rich ore, but has been little 
mined. All these iron hills are of volcanic origin. In 1866 the 
furnaces of Missouri turned out twenty -five thousand tons of do- 
mestic iron. The State geologist reports in this vicinity sufficient 
deposits of ore near the surface to yield one million tons per an- 
num of manufactured iron, for the next two hundred years! 

A few miles distant is the solid Granite Knob in the heart of a 
great limestone region— almost the only granite between the 
Rocky Mountains and the Alleghanies. 

On the fifteenth of August I again started for the far frontier. 
At Syracuse, one hundred and sixty-eight miles west of St. Louis, 
and then terminus of the Missouri Pacific Railway, I left the cars 
for a coach of the Butterfield Mail Company. 



1859.] WARSAW'S LAST CHAMPIONS — AND SOAP. 207 

Our coach, leaving Syracuse after dark, jolted along for fifty 
miles during tlie night, and at sunrise stopped for breakfast in 
Warsaw, Benton county — a genuine southern town, surrounding a 
hollow square with court-house in the center ; streets gullied by 
water and overgrown with weeds ; frame houses, log houses and 
stucco houses, with deep porticoes and shade trees ; negroes trudg- 
ing with burdens upon their heads ; deserted buildings ; tumbling 
fences and a general tendency to 'the demnition bow wows.' 
While washing on the hotel porch we asked the host for soap. 

Landlord, (imperious and tobacco-stained.) — Soap for the 
gentlemen. 

Clerk, (obsequious and flippant.) — Soap for the gentlemen. 
Porter, (white and Celtic.) — Soap for the jintilmin. 
Waiter, (white-eyed and Ethiopic.) — Cook, bring soap for de 
gemmen and be quick about it ! 

The cross-eyed cook, from Afric's sunny fountain, at last 
appeared with the longed-for article; but the incident was a 
shining illustration of the Institution. 

We forded the Osage though it is navigable above Warsaw for 
half the year. The region was hilly and rocky, intersected by 
many streams and timbered with a dozen varieties of oak ; the 
houses long and low with outside chimneys ; corn the principal 
crop; great numbers of cattle raised chiefly for the California 
market; and not more than one farmer in ten owning slaves. 

After passing some beautiful prairies and enduring another night 
5f uneasy slumber, we woke in Springfield, on the summit of the 
Ozark Mountains — the leading town of southwestern Missouri. 
Here was the office for the sale of Government land in that quar- 
ter of the State, amounting to three millions of acres. Some of 
this was subject to entry at twenty-five cents per acre ; but settlers 
had secured the fertile tracts years before, and the residue was 
rough and sterile. 

Springfield had pleasant, vine-trellised dwellings, and two thou- 
sand five hundred people. The low straggling hotel with high 
belfry, was on the rural southern model: dining-room full of 
flies, with a long paper-covered frame swinging to and fro over 
the table to keep them from the food ; the bill of fare, bacon corn 
bread and coffee ; the rooms ill- furnished, towels missing, pitchers 



208 LYNCHING IN SPRINGFIELD, MISSOURI. [1859. 

empty, and the bed and table linen seeming to have been dragged 
through the nearest pond, and dried upon gridirons. 

During my stay a half-witted negro was arrested for outraging 
a lady. In the fierce excitement it aroused, some hot-heads pro- 
posed collecting all the slaves from the adjacent farms, and burn- 
ing them on the public square. Two years earlier, two negroes 
had been burnt at the stake in Jasper, the second county to the 
west, for a similar crime, aggravated by the murder of their vic- 
tim and her family. Now, Springfield would have no burning, 
declaring it too barbarous. But on the second day a mob broke 
into the hall where the negro was confined, took him from the 
ofiicers, who did not attempt resistance, and hooting and yelling 
ran with him to the outskirts of the village and hung him upon a 
locust tree. He seemed to die of fright, for he never struggled 
after he was drawn up over the limb. Leading citizens assured 
me that for the same offense a white man would have received 
the same punishment; but how terribly unjust the system which, 
denying light and education to these poor creatures, still held 
them to a strict criminal responsibility ! 

Many immigrants were passing through the town. I was told 
of eight North Carolinians bound for Arkansas, who stopped a few 
hours on the public square, and were asked innumerable ques- 
tions. One communicative fellow replied that they were going to 
found a town ; the pursuit of each person was already marked 
out, and there were no drones among them. 

What was this man to do ? 

He was to open a store. *% 

And that ? 

Start a blacksmith's shop. 

And the other, standing behind him ? 

Engage in sheep raising. 

So they were nearly all classified, when a decrepid, white-haired 
octogenarian, venerable enough for old Time himself, was observed 
sitting in one of the wagons. 

' Why, who is that?' asked the eager questioner. 

' That's my grandfather.' 

' What is he going to do ? He can't be of any use to your 
settlement.' 



1859.] EFFECT OF THE WAR UPON MISSOURI. 209 

' O yes,' replied tlie North Carolinian promptly, ' we are taking 
tlie old man along to start a graveyard with !' 

Missouri with her unequaled resources of timber, coal, iron, 
lead, stone, and farming lands — with an area larger than New Eng- 
land, a genial climate, central position, and the grandest rivers of 
the world bounding her on two sides — was now prosperous and 
flourishing. Two years later I passed over the same route from 
St. Louis, to find the country blazing with civil war which swept 
away many fruits of the labor of twenty years. But it extirpated 
the poison that embittered her springs of life ; removed forever 
the mammoth stumbling-block from her path of progress ; cut 
loose the fetters that bound the young giantess hand and foot. 

From Springfield I continued by coach sixty- five miles to the 
little, dilapidated settlement of Cass ville, where I left the coach for 
the great Lead Region. The village merchant was sitting upon a 
keg in front of his grocery smoking a pipe. 

Could he tell me the distance to Granby ? 

About thirty-four miles, he reckoned. Was never thar, but had 
been in sight of the siminary. 

Could he furnish me with a horse ? 

Whar was I from ? 

Kansas. 

Not born thar ? 

No ; in Massachusetts. 

Ah ! (suspiciously) Did I allow to settle in these parts? 

No ; only to visit the Lead Eegion. Could he let me have a 
horse ? 

He reckoned not. One of his creturs was at work, another 
lame, and the third, though a right peert beast, too thin for the 
journey. But probably Jones, over across the field thar, could. 

In consideration of two dollars, Jones furnished a hardy little 
pony, and I started on my forest ride. It led by a few thriving 
orchards, corn-fields dotted with blackened stumps, and low log 
dwellings with looms and spinning wheels on their porches. 
Beyond the little village of ' Gad-fly ' I stopped at one of these 
farm-houses for a drink of water. An old woman smoking a 
long pipe and knitting on the porch was ready for a chat. 

This was a healthy country, though thar was some chilling ; 



210 CONVERSATIONS WITH THE SETTLERS. [1859. 

but tlien stranger they did'nt mind tliat mucli. She was bom in 
Virgin ny, had lived in Kaintuck ; but was never in a free State. 
She did'nt think much of slavery, but we had the niggers and 
what could we do with them ? They were lazy and thriftless, 
making a heap of care and bother. But somebody must do the 
work. The North employed poor whites, who, she reckoned, 
were no better off than our niggers. 

I dined with a young squatter whose lonely cabin was glad- 
dened by five blue-eyed children though his wife was but twenty- 
five. She was born in this country and thought it a mighty rough 
one. Last winter she and her old man traveled all through 
Texas, hard-on-to a thousand miles, and seed more than she would 
have learned in a life-time at home. Texas was a mighty fino 
country, but a poor place for stock. They would go back there 
as soon as they could sell their farm of four hundred acres, mostly 
unimproved. They offered it at six dollars an acre — cheaper than 
any other land thereabouts. This year the corn crop was good ; 
but three years before the drowth had destroyed it, not leaving 
enough for bread. The neighborhood was not much for learning, 
though JQst down the crick school tuck up (began) last week, 
and would continue two months. 

In a fertile, flower-covered prairie ten miles wide, an oasis 
among the hills, I reached Newtonia, a neat village with tasteful 
buildings, including the ' siminary ' of the Cassville trader. Five 
miles further I found Granby, in the largest and richest lead 
region of the United States. 

All mining districts have a mysterious family resemblance ; and 
this instantly reminded me of the Rocky Mountain gold diggings, 
though it was difficult to tell what features they had in common. 
Here on a rough woody tract of six hundred and forty acres, three 
thousand people were living — two-thirds of them working under 
ground. The rude village was dotted with log buildings, and like 
a prairie-dog town, with mounds of red loam gravel and stone 
thrown up from hundreds of shafts. From a valley near by rose 
the low heavy chimneys of smelting furnaces. 

The hotel landlord told me he was born in old Yirginny; 
came to St. Louis when that city had but three brick houses ; had 
since roved among lead mines of Iowa, Wisconsin, and Illinois, 



1859.] 



THE GREAT NEOSHO LEAD REGION. 



211 



gold diggings of California, pine forests of Oregon and "Wash; 
iugton, and Indians of the Eocky Mountains, by whom his brothei- 




GRANBY (MISSOURI) LEAD-MINERS, ABOVE GROUND. 

was murdered. He had ' seed a heap of country and of human 
nature.' 

Granby had at least one characteristic feature of mineral regions: 
it was prolific of drinking saloons, and two deadly affrays occurred 
during the night. 

A mining lirm to whom I bore letters, honored the draft upon 
their hospitality by ensconcing me in their neat cottage, in a 
picturesque valley a mile from the hamlet, where books news- 
papers and music afforded pleasant contrast to the dreariness and 
noise of Granby. Their furnaces had cost forty thousand dollars 
before they were ready to smelt the first pound of ore ; but were 
now proving remunerative. 

The lead is found from ten to seventy -five feet below the sur- 
face. From most shafts the ore is raised in buckets by the 
common windlass and crank ; but at 'a few, horse-power is used. 

Arrayed in a miner's suit of corduroys which age had with- 
ered and custom staled, I stepped into the descending bucket, and 



212 



SUBTERKANEAN MINING SCENES. 



[1859. 



clung to the rope above. The owner of the mine shared the con- 
veyance with me, using one hand and one foot to ward off the 

rough walls. At the depth of 
seventy feet we reached the bot- 
tom of the shaft, which was 
blasted through lime and flint 
rocks. 

Then my conductor bearing 
a tallow candle, guided me 
through the labyrinth of pas- 
sages, at times not more than 
two feet high, until we reached 
the miners. Some were quar- 
rying out the metal; others 
blasting it from ' pockets ' in the 
rock. In one place they were 
lying flat upon their backs, 
digging it with picks from the 
roof of a passage a foot high ; 
in another the}'' were perched 
up in a gallery, breaking off 
the blocks and rolling them 
down. Then the ore was car- 
ried by cars upon a wooden 
railway to the bottom of the 
shafts, whence it was drawn up into daylight, and hauled to the 
furnaces. 

A few feet above the floor was a stratum of flint, which 
made a secure roof. Where the excavation did not extend up to 
it props were set to keep the earth from falling in. The ore is 
found in seams from six inches to a foot thick. Sometimes there 
are huge masses nearly pure ; again it is mingled with flint rock ; 
and again the vein seems to run out, but re-appears in unexpected 
directions. One pure block weighing two thousand pounds was 
taken out. The ore averages eighty per cent, of lead. 

Here as everywhere mining was a lottery. Workmen some- 
times obtained no reward for many days, and again cleared a 
hundred and fifty dollars per week. Promising claims proved 




DOWN THE SilAFl'. 



1859.] 



MODE OF REDUCING LEAD ORE. 



213 



utterly worthless, and others which were believed exhausted after- 
ward yielded richly. The dark unwholesome mines were half 




LEAD MINERS UNDER GROUND. 



full of water and often dangerous from foul air. Yet laborers 
were glad to work in them at one dollar and twentj'-five cents per 
day, boarding themselves. 

My conductor, a miner from childhood, had witnessed many 
fatal accidents, and declared it ' a slave's life ;' but was unable to 
content himself in any other pursuit. 

The ore is reduced in * Scotch ovens ' by a heat much less than 
that required in smelting iron. It is broken into fragments no 
larger than walnuts, then mingled with lime, and melted upon a 
fire of charcoal and dry wood. In a stream bright and shining as 
silver, it falls into the basins. Thence it is ladled into molds 
where it cools into marketable 'pigs' of eighty pounds. This 
process extracts sixty-six per cent, of the lead. The refuse matter 
is then subjected to much greater heat by which ten per cent, more 
is obtained. The smelting is very trying to health. Smelters 



214 VILLAGES IN SOUTHWESTERN MISSOURI. [1859. 

received ten dollars per week, laboring five hours a day. The 
annual product of the region is now (1867) two and a half mil- 
lions of pounds, and the deposits in that section are believed to un- 
derlie an immense tract. Lead mines are less liable to 'run out' 
than silver or gold ; some in the Hartz mountains of Germany 
have yielded steadily and richly for five hundred years. 

Eeturning to Cassville I journeyed on by the mail coaches, 
which over mountainous roads accomplished more than a hundred 
miles every twenty -four hours. Great pride was felt in this ' Over- 
land ' line, and an old local mail stage still lumbering over the same 
track was derisively known as ' the Underland.' 

Our first point was Keetsville — a dozen shanties which looked 
like a funeral procession in honor of Keets, whoever he may have 
been. The neighbors called the place ' Chicken-Thief Another 
hamlet a few miles to the southward was known as ' Scarce-o'- 
Grease !' Near most of the farm dwellings were spring-houses 
where the matrons kept their milk and butter. Cellars were little 
known through Missouri and Arkansas because reputed damp and 
unhealthy — ^justly in a few sections, but unjustly in most. 

After crossing the State line we were jolted over the rough 
Boston Mountains, and obtained a moonlight view of Fayelteville, 
a pleasant county town with several churches, the United States 
land-of&ce for northeastern Arkansas, and pleasant dwellings. A 
rough village beyond is named ' Hog-Eye.' If not euphonious the 
nomenclature hereabout is at least original. The generous log- 
house where the passengers breakfasted was kept by a widow, 
whose wordly condition a local clergyman on board thus de- 
scribed : ' She's got lots of niggers and a heap of truck,' (property.) 

All day we were among mountains with farm-houses few and far 
between ; and at evening we looked down upon a pleasant picture. 
At our feet the village of Van Buren nestled among shade trees ; 
immediately beyond, the shining waters of the Arkansas river 
wound through a rich green valley ; still further, the deep many- 
hued foliage of the Indian Territory dotted with blue mountain 
peaks melted into the deeper blue of the sky. 

Crossing the stream by a ferry of two-pole power, and riding 
five miles along its deeply-shaded valley, we reached Fort Smith, 
in western Arkansas, on the border of the Indian Territory. 



1859.] LIFE AT FOKT SMITH, ARKANSAS. 215 



CHAPTER XVIII. 

Fort Smith is an abandoned military post, nominally Lead of 
navigation on the Arkansas, (Indian : smoky, bow-shaped river,) 
though steamers ascend to it only half the year. At high water 
they run one hundred and sixty miles above to Fort Gibson. 

The pleasant town now contained three thousand people. Its 
chief trade was with the neighboring Cherokees and Choctaws. 
By law, debts contracted by the Indians out of their own Territory 
could not be collected ; but the Fort Smith merchants trusted them 
freely and were faithfully paid. 

Every day scores of Aborigines added picturesqueness to the 
streets. The men wore gay, fringed frocks instead of coats, and 
red kerchiefs or turbans for hats; but otherwise dressed like 
whites. The petticoats and frocks of the women displayed as 
many colors of the rainbow as their purses would permit. 

Though more civilized than any other tribes the males scorned 
labor. Often one trudged empty-handed up from the ferry, while 
behind toiled his squaw with heavy keg or other burden upon 
her shoulders, and one of their negro slaves also unincumbered 
brought up the rear. He came as interpreter ; the negroes all 
spoke English while many of their Indian masters did not. 

According to my voluble landlord there were many slaves 
about Fort Smith. In winter especially, field hands had a far 
easier time than their masters. They were well supplied with 
spending money and went to a frolic almost every night : 

' I overseed for three years on a Louisiana cotton plantation. 
There the niggers have to work right on through the winter, for 
that's .the picking season. They begin at daylight and keep at it 
till dark ; an overseer follows them with a big whip, and you'd 



216 



COTTON PICKING IN LOUISIANA. 



[1859. 



think at first that they had a powerful hard time. But no matter 
how tight they are worked, just let them get together at night with 
a fiddle, and Lord, how they will frolic ! Keep it up till morning 
too, dancing and singing. That's the place for niggers ; put them 
in the South and they are just happy. 

' The man I overseed for was a mighty fine master — kind, but 
right strict. He kept them well clothed, for half of them are too 
careless to look out for the future. Growing cotton is the most 
profitable business in the world ; the planters don't raise any thing 
else except a few sweet potatoes, but buy all their provisions. 
Picking cotton is the great thing. A woman will pick faster 
than a man, but a child twelve years old will frequently beat them 
both. It can't be learned — it's a kind of sleight. Those planters 
think nothing of paying twenty -five hundred dollars for a good 
picker.' 

' Are there many slaves among the Indians, across the river?' 

'Yes sir. John Koss gov- 
ernor of the Cherokees has over 
a hundred ; and there's a right 
smart sprinkling through the 
whole nation.' 

' How are they treated ? ' 

'Badly. The Cherokees and 
Choctaws don't govern them ; in 
fact, the niggers are masters and 
do about as they please.' 

The negroes of Fort Smith had 
Methodist and Baptist churches. 
Like the temples of the whites, 
these places of worship had no 
bells ; and the Sunday morning 
congregations were called to- 
gether by the tooting of a dozen 
horns — a ludicrous form of the 
church-fjoing bell. 




THE CHURCH-GOING BELL. 



'D 



Many negroes had bought their freedom, and some had acquired 
considerable property. Several laundresses and nurses first re- 
deemed themselves, and then their husbands and children. But 



1859.] THE TALE OF AN INKSTAND. 217 

the Arkansas legislature had passed a stringent law requiring 
every free negro remaining in the State after January 1860, to be 
sold as a slave, and have his property confiscated to the county. 
He was graciously permitted to choose a master, who after paying 
his ap23raised value would own him absolutely. In western 
Arkansas schools are very rare, and many children grow up 
incredibly ignorant. At the time of my visit several of the State 
legislators were unable to write their own names. 

Outside of the few large towns, the epicurean tourist endures 
many tribulations. In rich stock-growing regions he finds sweet 
milk for his tea and coffee a rarity, and for drinking a myth. 
Butter seldom visits his table, but sometimes confronts him laden 
with odors never wafted from Araby the Blest. Of strong coffee, 
sour milk as a beverage, molasses, hot heavy biscuit with sale- 
ratus visible to the naked eye, and fat pork floating in gravy, he 
will find abundance. Pastry may haunt his dreama, but seldom 
his repasts. Even the inevitable corn-bread though of richest 
meal, comes ih such a questionable shape as to have no tempta- 
tion for his palate. One waggish old settler told me this story : 

' I have been living down here for twenty years. The desk in 
ray office is at the head of a long flight of stairs ; and in the haste 
of business my inkstand is often knocked off and rolled down. 
For a long time I could get no material that would stand this 
usage. Glass was out of the question. Stone broke like crockery. 
The hardest wood soon gave way. Finally a lucky thought 
struck me. I sent up to one of my neighbours — the widow B. — 
for a piece of her corn-bread. After ruining several fine tools I 
succeeded in hollowing it out into an inkstand. That was ten 
years ago ; and, stranger, I've used that inkstand ever since and I 
reckon it's good for two generations longer !' 

Banks were unknown, and gold and silver the only currency. 
The State contained just forty miles of railroad — from Memphis 
toward Little Rock. The speed of regular passenger trains by 
the time-table was seven miles an hour. 

A pioneer who settled in Fort Smith when there were only five 
houses, and before the military post was established, told me stir- 
ring tales of the early days. The town was a rendezvous for ad- 
venturers and desperadoes. By crossing the Arkansas on the 



218 EXPERIENCES IN A SICK CHAMBER. [1859. 

north side, or the Oporto on the west, criminals reached the Indian 
country beyond the reach of civil process. Deadly affrays were 
common ; and the most trivial quarrels settled by pistol and bowie 
knife. 

During my stay a lad of fourteen became angry with a gentle- 
man who taught a girls' singing school ; and while the teacher 
was surrounded by pupils twice snapped a pistol at him. The 
caps failing he flung a bowlder which knocked the teacher down 
senseless and bleeding, among his terrified little singers. The 
young would-be murderer was held to bail. Two planters 
quarreled about a real estate trade, and the lie was passed. Two 
days later one lay in the woods several hours, and while his enemy 
was passing killed him with a shot gun. He was held to bail. 

In a drinking saloon a youth of eighteen wantonly murdered a 
Cherokee Indian. The city council offered two hundred dollars 
for his capture, and when taken he also was held to bail. For 
years no one had been punished for homicide. The carrying of 
concealed weapons was common ; and a citizen assured me that he 
had seen a clergyman in the pulpit on Sunday with the handle of 
a bowic knife protruding from his pocket. 

My chief personal experience at Fort Smith came in the form of 
a typhoid fever, prostrating me for weeks. In that climate the 
disease often clings to a patient for five months. Producing a dull 
stupor with little perceptible pain, it is accompanied by malig- 
nant inflammation of the bowels. But nature provides a remedy. 
The green leaves of the bene plant, maturing at just the right 
season, after soaking in cold water, produce an agreeable glutinous 
syrup which rapidly replaces the lining of the intestines carried 
away by the dangerous disease. This tropical plant, grows in 
profusion, and is said to be identical with the Sesamum Orientale. 
Who knows but that it was the mysterious ' open sesame ' of the 
Arabian robbers ? 

I was among strangers and they ministered nnto me. Good 
fortune threw me under the roof of a Maine family who nursed 
me with patient tenderness. After weary days, I escaped from 
the sick chamber to breathe again the blessed open air. The 
stifling cloud upon my brain passed away, and left me like one 
just awakened from a heavy slumber. In that humid climate I 



1859.] ENTERING THE INDIAN TERRITORY. 219 

convalesced but slowly, and longed for the inspiring air of the 
mountains. At last in open rebellion to my physician I parted 
from the new friends to whom I owed my life, rolling away in the 
overland stage which by a shaky ferry crossed the Oporto into 
the Indian Territory. 

On the rich bottom-lands, oak, cottonwood, sycamore and pecan 
were festooned by vines burdened with delicious grapes, and in- 
closed by dense canebrakes. The small canes are shipped North 
for pipe stems, the larger ones for fishing rods. Three soft blue 
mountains melted into the southern horizon. 

Fourteen miles out, I left the coach at the residence of Governor 
Walker, executive of the Choctaw nation. He was educated in 
Kentucky, intelligent and agreeable ; nearly as white as myself, 
and with no betrayal of Indian origin in speech or features. His 
wife, a very dusky half-breed, did the honors of his table grace- 
fully. His farm of one hundred acres was all inclosed and under 
high cultivation. His log house, long low and hospitable with 
broad portico in front, was surrounded by stately oaks and grace- 
ful locusts. Several out-buildings served for kitchen, executive 
office and negro quarters. Little darkeys were ubiquitous, deco- 
rating every niche and perch with nimble cupids in bronze; perform- 
ing gum-elastic feats unequaled ; visible suddenly from behind 
corners, over fences, through windows, and under one's feet; 
dropping down from every point of the compass as if scattered 
by some genie from his overflowing pockets ; gathering them- 
selves together with whoop and somersault ; displaying rows of 
ivory, and wooly curls ; then miraculously vanishing again. 

The Indian Territory contains a hundred and fifty thousand in- 
habitants : Cherokees, Choctaws, Creeks, and Chickasaws. Each 
tribe resides on a separate tract, and has courts, legislatures 
schools and universities. 

Their physicians are great botanists, knowing the virtues of 
every green thing from the cedar of Lebanon to the hyssop upon the 
wall. They use a large horn for cupping, exhausting the air from 
it with the mouth through a little aperture, and piercing the spot 
with a sharp, neat lance, of ingeniously-ground glass. They are 
firm believers in the counter-irritant principle, and for every 
internal inflammation press a burning brand against the body. 



220 AMONG THE CHEROKEES AND CHOCTAWS. [1859. 



The Cherokees lead in civilization. They are largely tinctured 
with white blood. In their most populous sections one may travel 
all day without seeing a person of unmixed Indian extraction. 

Slavery among them was farcical rather than tragical. The 
negroes, far more intelligent than their masters, did much 

as they pleased, owning 
money, cattle and 
jDonies ; and as they 
made all purchases for 
the family, often feath- 
ering their own nests. 

John Ross, head 
chief of the Cherokees, 
was a very wealthy 
land and slave owner. 
He was nearly white, 
and had married a lady 
from Philadelphia. 

I was interested in a 
volume of Choctaw 
laws, a curious -grafting 
of thfe forms of civiliza- 
tion upon a stock of 
barbarism. Each sta- 
tute began : 




.'M 






A COUNTER-IRRITANT. 



' Be it enacted by the Warriors and chiefs in National Council asssembled.* 

One was authenticated by the signatures of 'Black Fox, Prin- 
cipal Chief; Path Killer, Secretary.' Another was signed ' Turtle- 
at-IIome, Speaker of Council ;' and a third ' Ennautanaueh, 
Speaker.' 

One legislator bore the name of ' Big Rattling Gourd ' — appro- 
priate for many a white Solon. Another was called ' The Dark ;' 
I fancy lie was full-blooded. One act was ' for the relief of Betsey 
Broom,' doubtless a good housewife — while she was new. Among 
other names in the volume were : Going Snake, The Hair, Sleep- 
ing Rabbit, Spirit, The Bark, Deer-in-Water, Bridge ]\Iaker, "Wo- 
man Killer (unquestionably a dandy,) Walking Stick, Old 



1859.] CURIOUS HEREDITARY COMPLEXIONS. 221 

Feather, the Turkey, Sour John, The Tough, Flying Buffalo, 
Spring Frog, Big Head, John Joll}^, and Soft-Shell Turtle. 

The Creeks are less advanced in civilization. In summer after 
working part of a day they often seek some cool shallow spot in 
the river, and lie in the water for hours. Thus old travelers re- 
late that dwellers on the Isle of Ormus were wont to sleep in 
wooden cisterns immersed in water up to their heads. 

They are famous pedestrians, often walking sixty or seventy 
miles a day. With a little sack of dried meat suspended from his 
neck, and his pockets filled with cakes of pulverized potatoes and 
beans, carefully wrapped in husks, the Creek starts on a tour of 
two or three hundred miles, and leaves the hardiest horse behind. 

The Choctaws used to flatten their foreheads artificially. From 
the extreme of barbarism they have advanced steadily in 
civilization since 1831, when they removed from Alabama to this 
region. They are honest faithful and peaceable, owning all lands 
in common, but permitting any one of their tribe to remain un- 
disturbed on the tract which he cultivates. Most are of unmixed 
Indian blood, though whites who have married Choctaw wives and 
been adopted into the tribe, enjoy all the privileges of citizenship 
save eligibility to the three highest offices. Where the father is of 
pure white blood and the mother an Indian or half-breed, or vice 
versa, five of the children may be entirely white, with Saxon fea- 
tures, and a sixth will have unmixed Indian lineaments, with a 
skin dusky as the darkest Comanche or Pueblo. 

The Choctaws produce much cotton in their rich valle3^s. 
Stock raising is the most lucrative employment. I found oxen 
selling at fifty dollars per yoke, cows at ten dollars each, and 
horses at twenty dollars apiece. Calves and colts branded with 
the owner's mark run at large, require no feeding in winter, 
and in two or three years are ready for the market. Every citi- 
zen's brand is registered in the public records, so that stray animals 
are easily reclaimed. According to Marco Polo the same system 
existed among the Tartars in the thirteenth century : 

' Every man who owns oxen or other cattle marks them with his seal asfl then turns 
them out upon the plains or among the mountains ; and whoever finds one straying 
brings it to him whose mark is upon it' 
15 



222 NOVEL BOARDING SCHOOL FREAKS. [1859. 

The Choctaw language though rude and rudimentary is often 
poetic. Fingers are ' sons of the hand,' and leaves ' tree-hair.' A 
river is a ' water-road,' and the moon, ' the night-traveling sun.' 
Arrows are 'cane-bullets, and bows 'wooden guns.' 

In sharp contrast to their white Arkansas neighbors the Choc- 
taws appropriated money freely for the education of their children. 
At ten large mission boarding schools six hundred pupils were 
studying. After graduating here promising boys were sent to 
eastern colleges at the public expense. In a girls' school super- 
intended by a Methodist clergyman, the sixty pupils all slept in a 
long hall. Sometimes at the dead of night one would strike up a 
sacred hymn ; one by one all the little sleepers would wake and 
join her, until the building rang with their voices. Next some 
little copper-hued girl in night-gown would mount a chair for a 
religious exhortation. Others would follow, till the little devotees 
with their groans, sobs and shrieks, rivaled a camp meeting. 

At other times a single girl would wake and begin some low 
weird song. One after another all would rouse and join her, the 
chant swelling until all these little throats roared forth the old war 
whoop of the Choctaw tribe! The teachers could not prevent 
these midnight entertainments even by whipping. The girls 
acquired language readily, were intelligent and in average capacity 
equaled white children. 

The constitution of the Choctavvs contained this provision : 

'The tenure of all offices sboll be for some limited period of time, if the persoQ 
appointed or elected thereto so long behave well!' 

Elections were by ballot. The legislative debates were in Choc- 
taw but the records in English. Neither atheists nor 'persons 
not believing in future rewards and punishments ' could hold office. 
Murderers were almost invariably caught, and publicly shot ten 
days after conviction. The penalty for stealing ' negroes, horses, 
mules, or jackasses ' was ' one hundred lashes well laid on the bare, 
back' for the first offense, and death for the second. Kidnappers 
were branded with the letter T (thief) on the forehead, and received 
a hundred lashes, also ' well laid on.' Excessive cruelty to animals 
was punishable by fine and thirty -nine lashes ; treason, by death ; 



1859.] 



CRINOLINE AMONG INDIAN WOMEN. 



223 



manslaugliter by one hundred lashes ; grand larceny by one hun- 
dred lashes, and the second offense by death ; libel, by 

'Such number of lashes on the bare back, luell laid on, as the court in its discretion 
may adjudge, having regard to tlie nature and enormity of the oU'ense.' 

Obviously this was no place for a roving journalist ; and I took 
the coach going west. It was tilled with passengers, including a 
loquacious Californian who in- 
troduced himself as General 

, without stating upon 

what bloody fields he won the 
title. Onr road led among 
wooded hills and park-like 
forests and across rich prairie 
openings, alive with hundreds 
of grazing cattle often white 
as snow. Men women and 
children of all hues between 
alabaster and ebony, lounged 
upon the long porticoes or on 
the grass under the tall trees. 
Some Indian girls wore the 
latest city modes with enor- 
mous crinolines. How abso- 
lute the sway of that gentle 
empress whose silent com- 
mands from her silken cham- 
bers go forth over sea and land, even penetrating the primeval 
forest and ruling the dusky daughters of an unknown race ! 

Man v formers had superb corn-fields. In early days the untamed 
Choctaws raised only grain enough for their subsistence. The first 
night after planting a corn patch, the hunter's wife walked around 
it, trailing her night-gown upon the ground, thus encircling it with 
a charmed line which neither voracious worm nor noxious insect 
could cross. The brave fancied that, Byron-like, the destroyers 
of his grain venerated a petticoat : 

'A garment of a mystical sublimity, 
No matter whether russet silk or dimity.' 




A CllAUMKlJ LINE. 



224 THE CHICKASAWS LOSE THEIK LAWS. [1859. 

The second day, we had left the mountains behind and were 
among beautiful prairies. Boggy Depot capital of the Choctaw 
nation contained two trading houses and half a dozen dwellings. 
It is near the country of the Chickasaws who have a separate 
government. A few years ago their legislature abrogated all 
existing laws and passed a fresh code. They sent the new manu- 
script laws into Texas to be printed, without retaining a copy. 
The messenger lost them while fording a river ; and they were 
never recovered. The courts were in a muddle which would have 
surprised Stephen Blackpool himself, until a new legislature sup- 
plied the deficiency. 

Approaching Texas we sang with the jolly German travelers: 

' Nut-brown maids and bread that's white, 
These shall be our lot to-night; 
Maids of white and bread of brown, 
Shall greet us in to-morrow's town.' 

The Indian Territory, nine time times larger than Massachusetts, 
is better watered and timbered than Kansas or Illinois ; has a delight- 
ful climate, a soil unsurpassed in the world, and enormous fields 
of coal. Adapted to every product from cotton to Indian corn, it 
is the most beautiful farming country under our flag, and when 
the railroad shall penetrate it, will leap into the condition of a 
populous and powerful State. 

Before seeing its inhabitants I was skeptical about the possi- 
bility of civilizing Indians. But these once cruel and barbarous 
tribes were now governing themselves, educating their children, 
protecting life and property far better than adjacent Arkansas 
and Texas, and rapidly assuming the habits of enlightened man. 

At Preston we crossed the Bed river into Texas. Light- 
draught steamers have sometimes ascended to Preston ; but the 
river is really navigable only to Shreveport, Louisiana. Thirty 
miles above Shreveport begins the great ' Raft'— an immense col- 
lection of trees and drift-wood half imbedded in the earth and 
firmly wedged together. It extends for seventy miles up the 
channel, sometimes spreading out to a width of thirty miles, and 
dividing the stream into many branches which do not all reunite 
for a hundred miles. 



1859.] NEWS OF bkoderick's death. 225 



CHAPTER XIX. 

One authority derives ' Texas ' from Teha^ (^f^PPJ hunting 
ground) applied by the Aztecs who fled thither after the subju- 
gation of their country by Cortez. According to another tradition 
it is an Indian word signifying 'friend.' 

Before daylight on the first morning we met the California mail, 
with six smoking horses on a swift run through the drenching 
rain, and the passengers lustily singing : 

' Down upou the Suwanee river.' 

Every day thereafter we encountered a stage from San Francisco, 
always stopping a moment to exchange gossip and newspapers. 
At midnight one coach-load sent a thrill of horror through our 
little company by intelligence that Broderick the favorite Free Soil 
senator from California had flUlen in a duel. Judge Terry, Brode- 
rick's adversary, was charged with foul play in the selection of 
weapons of the very finest trigger, with which he had practised for 
months, while Broderick had never seen them before. Five years 
later, Terry himself was killed while serving as an officer in the 
rebel army. 

Our first Texan town was Sherman, capital of Grayson county, 
on a high rolling site, with a population of five hundred. Five 
hours later we breakfasted at Gainesville, in Cook county, another 
pleasant village. Bej^ond stretched undulating prairies with soil 
as black and rich as that of Kansas — a good stock region though 
liable to destructive drowths, which ruin grass and sometimes 
compel the farmers to fatten their cattle on wheat. During the 
day we passed but five or six farms; and night overtook us on a 
barren soil among thin groves of low scrubby oaks. 



226 FREQUENCY OF HOMICIDES IN TEXAS. [1859. 

Septemher 28. — At one o'clock, A. M., found the West Trinit}^ 
river too much swollen for fording. The little station was full ; so 
we slept refreshingly upon corn-husks in the barn, or in the 
■western vernacular, the ' stable.' After breakfast we crossed the 
stream on foot by a slippery log, while drivers and conductor 
brought over heavy mail bags and trunks on the same precarious 
bridge. On the west bank another waiting coach was soon roll- 
ing us forward among mesquite groves. The long narrow leaves 
of this shrub are indeed 'tree-hair.' The slender hanging pods 
contain beans which both raw and cooked are palatable and 
nutritious to man. Horses also thrive and fatten upon them. 
Indians convert them, pods and all, into bread. Mexicans extract 
sugar and beer from them. Short fine mesquite grass also abounds. 
Like the buffalo grass it is eagerly devoured by stock, and does 
not lose its nutriment in winter. 

Breakfasted in Jackson countv where the Indians were so trouble- 
some that settlers dared not enter their fields to cut their wheat. 
In one direction the nearest white neighbors were a mile distant ; 
in another five ; in another eight, and to the north (toward Kansas,) 
two hundred and fifty miles. Lumber for doors and floors of the 
log station had been hauled from the nearest saw-mill, a hundred 
and fifty miles. 

All which I learned from our landlord who nervously paced 
his porch, ravenously chewing tobacco, and casting uneasy glances 
at the navy revolver by his side. Three weeks before, he had 
killed an employee of the stage company in a sudden quarrel, 
upon the very spot where we now conversed. He was under 
three thousand dollars bail to appear for trial ; but in this lawless 
region men were seldom convicted of homicide, and never ]>;;n- 
ished. Within a month there had been three other fatal shooting 
affrays near by; and our driver enjoined us: 

' If you want to obtain distinction in tfm countrj-, kill some- 
body ! 

At dusk we passed old Fort Belknap, the last outpost of civil- 
ization. Thence to the Rio Grande stretches a lonely desert for 
six hundred miles. Our horses were now exchanged for little 
Mexican mules. Four stout men were required to hold them 
■while the driver mounted to his seat. Once loosed, after kicking, 



1859.] 



THE QUAINT MEXICAN CART. 



227 



plunging and rearing, thej ran wildly for two miles upon the 
road. They can never be fully tamed. When first used, the 
drivers lash the coach to a tree before harnessing them. When 
ready for starting, the ropes are cut and they sometimes run for 
a dozen miles. But on this smooth prairie they do not often over- 
turn a coach. 

Fording the Brazos, we passed a wretched log-cnbin whose 
squatter, a frontier Monte Christo, had a hundred-acre corn- 
field, which here represented fabulous wealth. 

We were soon on the plains, where Indians claim exclusive do- 
main, and every traveler is a moving arsenal. We met a train 




A MEXICAN CART. 



of Mexican carts loaded with corn for the mail stations. A rude, 
primitive invention is this vehicular ox-killer, which must have 
come in vogue soon after the flood. The enormous wheels are 
of huge logs, clumsily framed together and loosely revolving upon 
a rude axle. The frame, of slats covered with hide or canvas, 
resembles a gigantic hen-coop. No iron is used in its construc- 
tion ; and the lumbering cart creaks and rattles and sways along 
the road, apparently just about tumbling to pieces. It is drawn 



228 STOPPED BY THE COLORADO RIVER. [1859. 

bj oxen, with a straight strip of wood across their shoulders and 
strapped to their horns, serving for a yoke. Ropes are substituted 
for chains and bows. The poor animals are driven with long 
sharp poles, bj dirty Mexicans, blanketed and bare-headed. 

All night our coach rolled noiseless over the soft road, while 
the wind trembling through the mesquite leaves swept after us a 
ceaseless lullaby. 

Sejjtember 29. — Daylight found us at Phantom Hill, named 
from the white ghostly chimneys of a burned fort. Beyond 
were barren hills dotted with mesquite and cactus, and covered 
with cities of prairie-dogs which often live twenty miles from 
water. Some conjecture that they dig subterranean wells ; others 
that they live without drinking. In winter tliey remain torpid, 
closely shut in their holes, and when they reappear it is an ua- 
fliiling indication that the weather is about to moderate. 

All day upon the silent desert, stopping only to change mules 
at lonely little stations. Air delicious and exhilarating. In the 
evening passed Fort Chadbourne, sixteen hundred feet above sea 
level, — a cluster of long low white barracks garrisoned by one com- 
iianv of infantrv. But the Comanches regard our soldiers much 
as they would a company of children armed with pop-guns and 
penny whistles. 

After dark, finding the Colorado* impassable, we slept in the 
coach waiting for its waters to subside. The vehicle's roof was 
like a sieve, and cold pitiless rain deluged us all night. 

Septemher 30. — Awoke cold and rheumatic ; but holding with 
Sancho Panza that a fat sorrow is better than a lean, breakfasted 
heartily upon pork and mesquite beans; and dried our clothes 
before the fire of the adobe hut-station. 

The Colorado, usually an insignificant stream a hundred feet 
wide but now a fierce torrent, compelled us to spend the day here 
in the favorite range of the Comanches. These fierce untamed 
savages roam over an immense region, eating the raw flesh of the 
buffalo, drinking its warm blood, and plundering Mexicans In- 
dians and whites with judicial impartialit}^ Arabs and Tartars 

* A head strenm of the Arkansas, often conf^ninded with the Colorado of Utah and 
California, and sometiuiea with the Minnesota Colorado or Red river of the North. 



1859.] 



THE FIERCE, UNTAMED COMAXCnES. 



229 



of tbe desert, they remove their villages (pitching their lodges in 
regular streets and squares) hundreds of miles at the shortest no- 
tice. The men are short and stout, with bright copper faces, and 
long hair which they ornament with glass beads and silver gew- 
gaws. 

On foot slow and awkward, but on horseback graceful, they 
are the most expert and daring riders in the world. In battle 
they sweep down upon their enemies with terrific yells, and con- 
cealing the whole body, with the exception of one foot, behind 
their horses, discharge bullets or arrows over and under the ani- 
mals' necks rapidly and accurately. Each has his favorite war 
horse which he regards with great affection, and only mounts 
when going to battle. With small arms they are familiar ; but 
' gun-carts ' or cannons, they hold in superstitious fear, from the 
effects of one fired amonsf them 
long ago by a Government expe- 
dition which they attacked upon 
the Missouri. Even the women 
are daring riders and hunters, 
lassoing antelope and shooting 
buftalo. They wear the hair 
short, tattoo their bodies hideous- 
ly, have stolid fiices, and are ill- 
shapen and bow-legged. ^Yhen 
a Comanche would show special 
fondness for an Indian or white 
man he folds him in a pair of 
dii'ty arms and rubs a very 
greasy face against the suffering 
victim's. 

These modern Spartans are 
most expert and skillful thieves. 
An old brave boasted to Marcy 
that his four sons were the noblest 
youths in the tribe, and the chief 
comfort of his age, for they could steal more horses than any of 
their companions ! 

They are patient and urtiring ; sometimes absent upon war ex- 




A COMAXCllK GIIEETIXG. 



230 SIGNAL CODE AMONG THE SAVAGES. [1859. 

peclitions .'vo years, refusing to return until tliey can bring the 
spoils of battle. When organizing a war party, the chief deco- 
rates a long pole with eagle feathers and a flag, and then in fight- 
ing costume chants war songs through his village. He makes 
man}^ raids upon white settlers, but his favorite victims are Alexi- 
cans. Like all barbai'ians he believes his tribe the most prosperous 
and powerful on earth; and whenever our Government supplies 
him with blankets sugar or money, attributes the gifts solely to 
fear of Comanche prowess. He is terrible in revenge ; the slight- 
est injury or affront will have blood. An American writer saw 
one chief punish the infidelity of his wife by placing the muzzle 
of his gun over her crossed feet and firing a bullet through them 
both. 

After death the warrior is buried on some high hill in sitting 
posture, with face to the east, his choicest buffalo robe about him 
and the rest of his wardrobe deposited by his side. His relatives 
mourn by lacerating themselves with knives or cropping their 
hair; and if he was killed in disastrous battle, by clipping the 
tails and manes of their horses and mules. 

On vast deserts the Comanchcs conve}^ intelligence hundreds 
of miles in a few hours. By day, green pine, fir, or hemlock boughs 
piled upon burning wood produce a heavy black smoke which is 
seen far away ; and at night they telegraph b^^ bonfires. Their 
signals are as well defined and intelligible as those of civilized 
navies — smokes and fires with stated intervals between, indicating 
the approach of enemies or calling the roving bands together for 
any purpose whatever. 

They are in-veterate smokers, mingling dried sumach leaves 
with tobacco; and thev drink whiskv to excess. When needful 
they easily abstain from food for days together, but afterward eat 
fresh meat in incredible quantities. 

Kever tilling the soil, insensible alike to the comforts and wants 
of civilization, daring, treacherous, and bloodthirsty, they are the 
destroying angels of our frontier, the mortal terror of weaker 
Indians and of Mexicans. According to tradition their ancestors 
came from a far country in the West, where they expect to join 
them after death. 

October 1. — This morning the river had so far subsided that we 



1859.] 



A PLUCKY LITTLE TEXAN WOMAN. 



231 



crossed, though the strong current swept our six little mules sev- 
eral yards down the stream, and compelled them to swim. Be- 
yond, i» ancient lake beds, our coach wheels crushed rattlesnakes, 
lying lazily in the road. They seldom bite except in August, 
when they are said to be blind and to snap indiscriminately at 
ever}'- living thing. Hogs do not fear them but kill and eat 
voraciously. Their flesh is a flivorite dish with old plains- 
men. 

Dined at the North Concho, Our spirited little landlady, reared 
in eastern Texas, gave us a description of an attack made by a hun- 
dred and twenty Comanches three weeks before. A stock-tender, 
her husband and herself shut themselves in the house, and with, 
their rifles kept the assailants at a respectful distance. The 
savages drove away all their mules and cattle, and a dozen of 
their iron-pointed feather-tipped arrows were still sticking in the 
Cottonwood logs. That very morning a party of Comanches had 
pursued the station- 
keeper when within 
two miles of his dwell- 
insr. One of their ar- 
rows passed through 
his hat, but his fleet 
horse saved him. He 
laughed heartily at 
this morning amuse- 
ment, but his little 
wife was only angry, 
declaring vehemently 
that thev would not 
be driven out of the 
country by worthless 
Red-skins. 

Manj^ species of cac- 
tus beside our road. 
One, the soap plant, 
has a large fibrous 
root said to possess saponaceous properties, and the Mexicans are 
reputed to use it in washing their persons and clothing; but 




A MORXIXG AMUSEMENT. 



232 ON THE GREAT STAKED PLAIN. [1859. 

generally they cherish strong antipathy to all soap. Most of 
them would be improved by spending half an hour under a pump- 
spout, with a vigorous man at the handle. Scores of spotted 
antelopes in sight. The wolves are said to chase them in a 
circle, thus enabling a fresh pursuer to take the place of the 
weary one every time they pass the starting point. Fleetness falls 
a victim to cunning, and the poor antelope soon furnishes a feast 
for the hungry pack. 

At dark, with fresh strong team and additional rifles and 
revolvers on board, we entered upon that old terror of immigrants, 
the Great Staked Plain. In the cold dreary night this barren 
table land stretched afar — an utter sand- waste with a few shrubs 
of cactus and grease-wood. A few weeks before, travelers had nar- 
rowly escaped death from thirst. At one stage-station during 
four-fifths of the year, water for the mules was hauled in casks 
twenty -two miles. But now the ground was saturated. Again 
and again during the dark night our conductor left the stage with 
his lantern, searching for the track, which neither driver nor mules 
could see many yards ahead ; there was danger of wandering off 
into the wilderness. 

Ocfohn- 2. — Daylight found us on a shoreless ocean of desolation. 
Excepting the faint mail road, 

'Nor dint of hoof nor print of foot 

Lay in the wild and arid soil ; 
No sign of travel, none of toil — 
The very air was mute,' 

The ancient Mexicans marked a route with stakes over this vast 
desert, and hence its name. It is four hundred miles long by two 
hundred in width, and two thousand eight hundred feet above sea 
level. Among its gypsum deposits are large sheets of ' the pure 
transparent selenite which ' according to Hitchcock ' the ancients 
usi.'d for windows. It has the curious property of enabling a per- 
son within the house to see all that passes abroad, while those 
without cannot see what is passing within. Nero employed it in 
his palace,' 

We journeyed for eighty miles across a corner of the desert, 
passing two or three mail stations, the most desolate and lonely of 



1859.] 



A GIRL STOLEN" BY COMANCHES. 



233 



all human habitations. Then through a winding canyon we 
descended into the broad valley of Pecos river and halted at a 
station of adobe. Thence I traveled eight hundred miles before I 
again saw a wooden building. 

Crossing the swollen river in a skiff we took another waiting 
coach and soon struck the old trail of the Comanches to the City 
of Mexico. Eight beaten paths side by side indicated the fre- 
quenc}'" of their bloody raids into northern Mexico, for cattle 
horses and children. They once kidnapped a daughter of the 
govern or- general of Chihuahua, tatooed her and furnished her with 
an.Indian husband. When discovered by her father she was the 
mother of several children, and refused to leave the tribe. Single 
warriors possess two hundred stolen Mexican horses. 

Among these barren sands we suddenl}^ saw on the horizon a 
lake of clear blue water fringed with wooded shores ; but while we 




THE MIRAGE. 



gazed in wonder it vanished. This wonderful mirage was a lovely 
miracle ; but it sometimes proves a terrible mockery to lonely 
American emigrants perishing from thirst ; and it bitterly betrayed 
the French army in Egypt. 

Beyond Camp Stockton — a military post of three or four edi- 



234 A FATAL FONDNESS FOR PICTURES. [1859. 

fices witli pearly misty mountains in the background — we reached 
the well-trodden mail road from San Antonio to El Paso. 

October 3. — After an intensely cold night breakfasted on deli- 
cious venison, at a mountain station where last winter the supply 
gave out, and the inmates subsisted for twelve days wholly upon 
corn, ground in a cofifee-mill. 

Sunrise overtook us in Limpia Canyon whose rocky walls, a 
thousand feet high, have been sculptured by water into fantastic 
figures. Some are isolated, others in bass-relief. Great pagan 
idols show worshippers in flowing garments kneeling before them. 
Beside these stands a sentinel with hands in pockets, wistfully 
eying an enormous cask, as if waiting for his matutinal dram. 
Around the cask a sharp-nosed wolf is cautiously peeping, while 
beyond tapestry incloses the group in graceful folds. 

The striking, beautiful gorge soon widens into a secluded valley, 
where the Apaches often stole the stock of the San Antonio 
mails. Once they killed the driver and took mail bags and all. 
At their next camping ground they opened one sack and dis- 
covered several illustrated papers. They had never seen an en- 
graving; and a new world was revealed to them. Lying upon 
the ground with the pictures spread before them, these over- 
grown children were absorbed in wonder and delight. But 
suddenly the comedy was changed to tragedy. A squad of 
cavalry approaching unperceived dashed in among them, killing 
fourteen and routing the rest. The Apaches believed the pajDers 
had revealed their whereabout ; and still supposing that pictures 
can talk they avoid them with superstitious dread. 




"^mmmiM^ 






INDIANS SURPI^ISKD AXI> MIFKATHD IX LIMPIA CANYnx. IV\f;E 234. 



h 



1859.] PKEACHING EASIER TUAN PKACTICE. 235 



CHAPTER XX. 

Passing a little Mexican house with roof and chimney of adobe, 
walls of upright poles and gables of cotton cloth, we reached Fort 
Davis, four thousand two hundred feet above sea level, named in 
honor of Jefferson Davis while he was secretary of war. The 
site is of unequaled beauty : surrounded by tall conical mountains 
and fronting upou a f lir valley. The buildings are of dark stone 
with straw-thatched roofs; and noble trees shade the grounds. 

Twenty miles beyond we crossed the highest ridge between St. 
Louis and El Paso. The California general was still on board, 
and an army colonel now joined us. At the first station, the little 
stage mules were so wild that they could only be caught in the 
stable yard by lassoing them. When we started they proved 
altogether unmanageable. In the headlong race, whik the coach 
was poised on two wheels, I sprang out. The vehicle barely 
avoided capsizing; and after a circuit of a mile, the driver brought 
his riotous steeds around again and stopped for me to re-enter. 

' My friend,' observed the colonel, ' you are fortunate to escape 
a broken neck.' ' Whatever happens, always stick to the coach.' 

'And,' added the general, ' never jump out over a wheel !' 

Scarcely had these golden axioms been uttered, when the spirits 
of our mules again effervesced. The coach was transformed into 
a pitching schooner, which the bounding billows of prairie tossed 
and rolled and threatened to wreck. I kept in the vehicle ; but 
both my military companions jumped headlong over a hind-wheel 
to the sure and firm-set earth. After that climax, equilibrium wa3 
restored ; but the colonel picked up with a sprained ancle, and the 
general, with a severely bruised foot, both seemed in doubt 
whether to laugh or fight, when their own wise counsel was 
repeated to them. 



236 



THE COLONEL RETIRES DISABLED. 



[1859. 



The country was dreary enough to recall the traveler's expe- 
rience among the barren hills of Virginia. In a specially forbidding 
region, he passed a tumble-down log-hut with old hats stuffed in 
the windows. At one aperture appeared a face surmounted by a 
shock of hair and half-hidden in an ambush of wrinkles. 

'I say, stranger!' shouted its owner; 'I'm not so poor as you 
think. I don't own all this land about here !' 

Our natural mountain road was equal to the best turnpike. 
Among the many species of cactus, one low, turnip-shaped plant 
holds in its rough thorny skin a watery pulp, which quenches the 
thirst of man and beast. Another common variety, the Spanish 

bayonet, is here ten feet 
high, its upright stem 
crowned with long 
sharjj spurs like bayo- 
nets, so firm that it is 
said the}^ will pierce 
through the body of 
a man. 

October 4. — At day- 
light we reached the 
Kio Grande and looked 
across it upon Mexican 
territory. Three dirty blanketed 
l)arefoot men smoking cigarettes, 
sliivered over the fire on the river 
bniik, where two Mexican women 
cooked our breakfast of frijoles. 

At Fort Quitman, wbose white- 
washed adobe buildings look like 
marble, we left the colonel, so 
lame that his Irish servant lifted 
him from the coach like a baby. The general while asleep had 
lost his hat overboard, for the second time within forty-eight hours. 
Unable to purchase a new one he wrapt his head in a fiery red 
comforter, like a sanguinary and turbaned Turk. 

We continued up the sandy valley of the Rio Grande, from five 
to forty miles wide, and bounded on the west by a notched line of 




TUE Sl'AXlSU BAYOXET. 



1S59.] FIRST LINE ACROSS THE CONTINENT. 237 

Tiountains. We passed ISrexican villages, where briglit-ej-ed, 
dusky-faced, half-naked children were playing about the streets, 
and through open doors women were visible in very simple dress 
or undress, reclining upon matresses, gossiping and smoking 
cigarettes. Toward evening we were among ranches, herds of 
cattle, and great corn-fields. There are no fences; but all cattle 
are watched by herders from planting-time until November. 
Water is conveyed from the river through ditches to every portion 
of the fiirms. In this sandy soil and rainless climate, no crop 
can be raised without irrigation. 

Passing the pleasant, shaded Mexican hamlet of Socorro, with 
quaint old churches and low houses of adobe, and Ysletta, a 
Pueblo Indian settlement with its tall white cathedral, we 
reached El Pc\so at eight in the evening, having traveled ninety 
miles since dawn, and two hundred and twenty-six during the last 
thirty-four hours. 

El Paso, twelve hundred miles from St. Louis and from San 
Fi-ancisco, was the half-way point on the great Overland route. 
This was the first rapid line across the continent. John 
Butterfield and his associates were paid six hundred thousand 
sand dollars a year for carrying tri-weekly mails between St. Louis 
aiid San Francisco, Ruling influences in Congress and the White 
House compelled them to adopt a far southern route through the 
Indian Territory, Texas and Arizona; while a branch line from 
]\[cniphis also joined the main stem at Fort Smith, Arkansas. 
The coaches ran day and night, ordinarily going from St. Louis 
to San Francisco in twenty-one days, though the law allowed 
twenty-five. It was the longest stage route in the world. 

To establish this line three thousand miles across mountains, 
deserts, dangerous rivers and the territory of hostile Indians, was 
a gigantic enterprise. The stages ran by a time-table, and with so 
much regularity that during twelve months there had not been a 
single failure to deliver the mail on schedule time. Ever}?- day 
for two winter months, near the middle of the long route, the 
coaches from St. Louis met those from San Francisco within three 
hundred yards of the same spot. The through fare was a hundred 
and fifty dollars, exclusive of meals, which cost from forty cents 
to one dollar. The line continued in operation till the war broke 

16 



238 'out west' on its travels. [1859, 

out in 1861, when tbe Texans and Arkansans seized most of tha 
mules and coaches. It was then removed to the central route. 
The Wells-Fargo company, composed of the same stockholders, 
now carry mails and passengers from the western termini of the 
Kansas and Nebraska railways, via Denver Salt Lake and 
Nevada, to California. 

The early settlers upon Massachusetts bay, after exploring the 
country for twenty miles 'out West,' reported the fact with triumph- 
ant surprise, and boasted that the soil was tillable for that entire 
distance. Most adults remember when Buffalo was spoken of as 
' out West.' How rapidly the application of that familiar phrase 
has since moved toward the setting sun ! Now, on this remotest 
frontier, I heard a merchant speak of sending goods 'out West.' 

'And pray,' I asked, '■ where may ihat be ?' 

' O,' be replied carelessly, ' about a hundred miles over into 
Mexico.'* 

The Texan town of El Paso had four hundred inhabitants, 
chiefly Mexicans, Its business men were Americans, but Spanish 
was the prevailing language. All the features were Mexican : low, 
fiat, adobe buildings, shading cottonwoods under which dusky, 
smoking women and swarthy children sold fruit, vegetables, and 
bread; habitual gambling universal, from the boy's game of 
pitching quartillas (three cent coins) to the great saloons where 
huge piles of silver dollars were staked at monte. In this little 
village, a hundred thousand dollars often changed hands in a single 
night through the potent agencies of monte and poker. There 
were only two or three American ladies ; and most of the whites 
kept Mexican mistresses. All goods were brought on wagons 
from the Gulf of Mexico, and sold at an advance of three or four 
hundred per cent, on eastern prices. 

From hills overlooking the town, the eye takes in a charming 
picture — a far-stretching valley, enriched with orchards, vineyards 
and corn-fields, through which the river traces a shining pathway. 
Across it appear the flat roofs and cathedral towers of the old 
Mexican El Paso; still further, dim misty mountains melt into 
the blue sky. 

♦ A native word, signifying the home or seat of Mextilli, the Aztec god of war. 



1859.] PEON LABOR IX XEW MEXICO. 239 

Western Texas has a poor soil and is very thinly settled. El 
Paso county is three hundred miles long, and from eighty to two 
hundred miles in width. 

The vocabulary of slang was large and novel. TVhen two 
friends shook hands the invariable salutation was the Indian 
' How?' ' Outfit,' (always familiar on the verge of regions where 
the traveler must carry every thing he needs on the journe}",) 
might mean one's clothing, his watch, his horse, or even his 
mistress. One's ' ranch ' was his dwelling, office, bed-chamber, 
or trading-house. To ' go under,' or ' go up,' was to die. To 
'jump a man' was to attack or kill him. A 'greaser' was a 
Mexican — originating in the filthy, greasy appearance of the 
natives. 

Slavery was only nominal in western Texas, as negroes could 
easily cross the Eio Grande into Mexico, where the natives shel- 
tered tlicm. Bat here, as throughout old and New Mexico, peon 
labor was universal. Natives of the lower classes, ignorant and 
thriftless, were always ready to contract a debt and agree to work 
it out, receiving from three to ten dollars a month and clothing 
themselves. xVs no one else would supply him with goods this 
placed the peon at his master's mercy, and compelled him to pay 
most exorbitant prices. But he seemed to like it; and cases 
where one liquidated his debts and became free were very rare. 
Just before my arrival, a peon by jeixrs of labor had earned his 
freedom ; but in less than a week he bought an eighty-dollar 
silk dress for his wife, contracting a debt which would make him 
a slave for life. 

The American residents believed in the inalienable right of the 
white man to bully the inferior race. At Messilla all public re- 
cords and legal proceedings were in Spanish. A Kentuckian was 
brought before the alcalde or magistrate for assault and battery. 
The native judge, with shaggy beard uncombed hair and dirty 
face, appeared on the bench in a soiled calico shirt and buckskin 
sandals. He knew no English. Sternly motioning the Kentuck- 
ian to rise he ordered the sheriff to ask the prisoner whether he 
spoke Spanish. 

' Nary Spanish.' 

' Then,' said the alcalde, ' he must hire an interpreter.' 



240 



A KENTUCKIAN IN COURT. 



[1859. 



The delinquent, sliifting his tobacco quid to the other cheek, 
replied : 

'Ask him wliether this court is sitting in Mexico or the United 
States ?' 




STREET SCENES IX EL PASO, OLD MEXICO. 



' In the United States !' responded the angry official. 

' Then tell him that I understand the United States language, 

and if he don't I'll see him d d before I hire an interpi'eter for 

Jam J 

The enraged alcalde fined the Kentuckian twentv-five dollars for 
contempt. The prisoner in return commended the court to the 
infernal regions, and drawing his revolver strode awa}-, anathema- 
tizing any conntry where Greasers presumed to administer justice 
to white men ! 

Hundreds of many-colored sheep and goats graze the val- 
leys and hill-sides. The shepherd dogs which guard them are 
sometimes left in sole charge for hours. They keep the flocks 
compact, driving all stragglers back upon the herd, and never 
leaving their posts. 

Immediately west of the Texan El Paso runs the Rio Grande, 
dividing our possessions from old Mexico. On its west bank is 



1859.] STREET PICTURES IN MEXICAN TOWNS. 241 

the Mexican city, El Paso Del Norte, thus named by the Span- 
iards from the pass through the mountains at this point. Coming 
from the south they called it ' the North Pass.' Long afterward our 
own pioneers from the east named a mountain-crossing on the 
Salt Lake road ' the South Pass.' Consequently the latter is a 
thousand miles further north than the former, to the sore per- 
plexity of travelers and geographers. 

The Mexican El Paso contains tv^elve thousand people, and 
extends up and down the river for miles. Next to St. Augustine 
Florida, it is the oldest European settlement on our continent. 
As essentially un-American as India or China, it is a quaint old 
city of gardens and corn-fields, orchards and vineyards, shaded 
by green cottonwoods, with a net-work of ditches crossing the 
streets spanned by rickety log bridges. A city of swarth}-, dimin- 
utive, sinister-faced men, and dusky women who permit only 
their lustrous eyes to be seen in public. Of narrow, crowded 
thorouglifares through which Mexican carts creak and rumble, 
luilf-naked boys and indolent men bear water-kegs suspended from 
poles between them, women balance huge jars upon their heads, 
and little donkeys stagger under enormous loads of corn-stalks. 
Of ancient adobe houses with wooden doors and window shutters, 
quaintly carved but without a pane of glass ; and of a cpumblitg 
cathedral erected before the Pilgrims landed on PWmouth rock. 

The Mexican is pre-eminently social. If an American enters 
the saloon where he is drinking, with endless bows lie insists that 
the new-comer shall taste from his glass. If another lilexican 
enters, he even takes the cigar from bis mouth and hands it to his 
friend, who after a few whitfs passes it to a neighbor. Thus it 
goes around the company before returning to the owner's lips. 

Ilis idea of heaven seems to be a maze of long-robed priests, 
gorgeous paintings and wax candles; a blessed asylum where 
cigarettes, wine and brandy never foil, where there is no work, 
much gossip, and a fandango every night. 

By ' the gift of Nature,' he is a wine connoisseur, a dancer, and 
a walking cigar manufactory. While earnestly talking, he produces 
a square bit of corn-husk or paper from one pocket, a box of fine- 
cut tobacco from another, and rolls up and lights a cigar without 
once looking at it. 



242 



A NATIVE MEG MERRILIES, 



[1859. 



The large and delicious El Paso grape grows abundantly. For 
a few pennies one is allowed to enter any vineyard and eat his 
fill. The wine though a little heavy is rich and unctuous. I do 
not covet my Mexican neighbor's house nor his wife, his man- 
servant nor his maid-servant, his ox nor his ass ; but I confess to 
twinges of envy that he can enjoy throughout the year the glowing 
vintage of El Paso. 

The first evening's duty was to attend a findango. When we 
entered, the dancing had begun. Several Texan whites, all armed, 
were present. One while dancing dropped his enormous revolver 
and bowie knife — a display which excited no attention. There 
were black spirits and white, red spirits and gra^^ The faces of 
dancers and spectators in the low basement, lighted by tallow 
Ciindles, made up a medley of hues from dark Indian to fairest 




A MEXICAN FANDANGO. 



Saxon. On the platform at one end, three musicians without coats 
were hard at work. All entered into the amusement with enthu- 
siasm ; and participants and lookers on of both sexes were smok 
ing. When a woman rose to dance she handed her cigarette to a 
neighbor to smoke until she returned. A demented old hag 
whose hideous face would have made her fortune as Meg Merrilies 
or the chief of Macbeth's witches, was raving about the room 



1859.] AN ARISTOCRATIC CASTILIAN GATHERING. 2-13 

wearing no clothing except a cliemisc. The women were coarse- 
featured and homely, but their voices low and pleasing as they 
chattered in liquid Spanish. Many had beautiful, luminous eyes, 
and all a grace of motion rarely seen in their English or American 
sisters. 

At ten o'clock we left the lively fandango for a ball of ' the first 
society' — a few fomilies who claim that their pure Castilian blood 
has never mingled with that of the native Indians. They were 
not wont to associate with Americans, but to-night a few Texans 
were invited. 

I found this patrician haile in an ancient family mansion, built 
around a hollow court after the old Moorish mode, for protection 
against attack. The servants recognizing my companion opened 
the great barred gate, and conducted us through the court to a 
spacious well-lighted saloon. Its earth floor was covered with 
plain hemp matting. There were no chairs, but stationary benches 
against the walls. 

The dancing had already begun, but it was listless; and like 
most aristocratic affairs this proved heavy and stupid. Among 
the thirty or forty guests I saw no Indian features. The ladies 
were no dai-ker than our own brunettes. Some had faces 
regular and almost classic ; but not one showed intelligence and 
vivacity. Their movements were languid and graceful. Wine 
was frequently passed, each lady taking a dainty sip and then re- 
placing the glass upon the waiter for twenty or thirty others to 
drink from. Only a few were smoking. 

The next morning (Sunday) the market on the great plaza was 
crowded and the stores open, for this is the grand gala and busi- 
ness day of the weelc A harsh, cracked bell from the old 
cathedral summoned the people to worship. The shaky tower of 
the crumbling edifice had contained a bell brought from Spain, 
nearly as ancient as the building itself A few months before 
my visit an old friend, Edward E. Cross, surreptitiously pocketed 
the tongue and carried it to * the States ' as a curiosity. The na- 
tives so resented this sacrilege that Cross's life would not have 
been safe for a moment among them. He had been an editor in 
Cincinnati, and a rover through every State in the Union ; and 
was now publishing a newspaper in the wilds of Arizona. After- 



244 SUNDAY WORSHIP IN THE CATHEDRAL. [1859. 

■ward lie commanded a regiment of Mexicans under Juarez until 
our great rebellion. Then he became colonel of the fifth New 
Hampshire infantry; participated in almost every battle of the 
glorious Army of the Potomac, and was wounded again and again. 
At last, in 1864, he received the fatal shot and yielded his life for 
his country. 

The old cathedral was in the form of a cross. The congrega- 
tion numbered five thousand, more than half women. The men 
looked like cut-throats, but were the most devout worshippers I 
ever saw. All the women wore the rebozo or broad scarf, cover- 
ing the entire face except the luminous, brilliant eyes. The ser- 
vices were conducted by an unctuous, sensuous-looking priest, who 
seemed in no haste to join the church triumphant. 

There was an irrepressible conflict between the Mexicans and 
their Texan neighbors. Peons would escape into Texas, and slaves 
into Mexico ; and both found sympathy and refuge. Several armed 
Texans had lately attempted to carry back an alleged fugitive 
after the alcalde had tried the case and declared the negro free. 
There was a good deal of random shooting on both sides ; but tha 
Texans were finally captured and heavily fined. 



1859.] FROM EL PASO TO SA^'TA FE. 2i0 



CHAPTER XXI. 

I4EAVINO the trans-continental route I turned northward from 
El Paso, taking the weekly mail coach for Santa Fe : — throe hun- 
dred and lifty miles; forty dollars exclusive of meals. 

Our old-fashioned stage was drawn by six mules, with a seventh 
led beside them for emergencies, and an eighth ridden b}^ a young 
]^[exican armed with a 'black-snake' whip, whose pistol-like 
crack and keen stroke terrified if it did not hasten the lazy little 
animals. 

Our road was up the sandy valley of the Eio Grande, barren of 
vegetation but 2:)rolific of lizards and frequented by the deadly 
tarantula, resembling an enormous black spider. 

Soon entering New Mexico, we saw no habitation for twenty 
miles until we reached our adobe dinner station. A little Mexi- 
can village hard by had just been ravaged by the Apaches, who 
entered in broad daylight, stealing every horse and mule they 
could find, and unresisted by the terrified natives. 

At Fort Fillmore — a collection of pleasant Government bar- 
racks — a slave woman black as Erebus took passage, journeying 
alone from Virginia to a new owner in Santa Fe. 

Passing frequent villages, at midnight we entered upon the 
Jomancla del Muerio, (journey of the dead man.) This desert 
ninety miles long, contains no water except a single spring several 
miles from the road. Many travelers hnve perished from thirst, 
and upon the grc^md bleach the bones of scores of animals. But 
two days before us the mail party discovered two corpses by the 
road-side. We journeyed all night, and in the morning while we 
halted for men to breakfast and mules to graze, a horseman came 
into our camp nearly famished, as he had thirsted for twenty -four 



246 



ADVENTURES WITH THE APACHES. 



[1859. 




hours. Our keg of fresli water strapped behind the coach revived 
him and he went on rejoicing. Good riders have often crossed the 

tract without water 
accompHshing the 
journey in a day 
and night, and not 
taking food, as that 
always aggravates 
thirst. 

Our conductor, a 
Yirsrinian who had 
lived for thirteen 
vears in this region, 
was an express-ri- 
der across the des- 
ert for eight years 
before the estab- 
lishment of the 
mail. He had re- 
peatedly crossed 
in twelve hours, 
when in fear of the Apaches, who murder and rob upon its dreary 
road. He ran that gantlet of death one day in each week for 
Qight hundred dollars per annum. 

'Some people,' he gossiped, 'sneer at running from Indians; but 
/always found my heels my best weapons. Thar was one Apache 
band led by old chief Mangus, that came near getting me. They 
chased me a heap of times, and I thought oncet or twicet that I 
was gone under, sure. They were commonly in companies of a 
dozen to forty ; but one day I met old ]\[angus alone. He was 
mighty glad to see me then, and powerful friendly ; but I had my 
six-shooter cocked in his face before he know'd it. ' It's no 
use to play good,' says I; 'you've been after me too man}^ times. 
Now you d — d old scoundrel, I've got you, and I'm bound to 
take your har !' How the old fellow did beg ! Finally he pawned 
me his honor that if I'd let him off I should never be troubled 
again ; and he kept his word. I rode here for years afterward, 
and often met his men, but nary one ever molested me.' 



'JOURXEY OF THE DEAD MAN.' 



1859.] 



MEXICANS AND MEXICAN WOMEN. 



247 



Mexican women he thought the kindest in the world. Many 
an American owed his life to them. They were fond of white 
men, which made the Greasers jealous and dangerous. 

'Are the men treacherous ?' 

'/never had any trouble with them; but stranger, I always 
watch a Greaser, and at night I never let one travel behind me. 
It's the safe way, if you don't want to get stabbed or shot in the back.' 

All da}^ without meeting a human being, we rode among dreary 
wastes with clumps of Spanish bayonet, grease-wood, faint tufts 
of grass, and solitary delicate flowers variegating the ashen 
landscape, and the wonderful mirage painting the for horizon. 
At night, the desert left behind, we lodged at a ranch where the 
face of the landlord, (an Indiana rover with a Mexican wife,) so 
revealed his Hoosicr origin that he who ran miglit read. 

The next morning we start- 
ed by starlight. Day broke 
upon fleecy clouds drifting up 
from the valleys and half hid- 
ing the rugged peaks in float- 
ing draperies. Beside our 
road many a rough wooden 
cross marks the spot of some 
violent death. Passing trav- 
elers each add a stone to the 
pile at its foot, aiding to form 
a rude monument. 

At our dining station native 
women were re-plastering the 
adobe house with fresh mud, 
using their hands for trowels ; 
but stopped to prepare our 
repast. Here I first saw the 
genuine Mexican grist-mill. 
It is locally known as the 
mitaia^ is propelled by one-woman power, and has been in use 
from remotest antiquity. One of our dusky entertainers crushed 
corn for tortillas^ (griddle cakes) in this rude stone morter; then 
another pounded coffee in it ; then a third pounded, mixed, and 




MEXICAN GUIST-illLL. 



248 CONSUMPTION OF EED PEPPERS. [1859, 

baked red peppers and buffalo meat, for the chief staple of our 
meal. 

' Unless your stomach be strong do not eat cockroaches.' Disre- 
garding this wise African proverb I tasted a morsel of the fiery 
dish. It was like red-hot iron ! The natives are extravagantly 
fond of it. Red peppers, in general use even before the Spanish 
conquest, are still raised in enormous quantities. The year's 
sup]:)ly spread out to dry upon the flat roof of each Mexican 
dwelling, would suffice for five hundred Americans. The pepper 
enters into every article of food, and is Nature's preventive of 
some malignant fevers common to tropical countries. 

The next day we found many settlements. Each town, with its 
plaza, old Catholic church, narrow streets, and naked children is 
like every other. At every ranch sheep and goats graze the hills. 
Women and girls are husking corn beside every house, sj^reading 
the yellow ears upon the roof to dry. The stalk is so sweet that 
babies suck it like sugar. 

At noon while our coach halted, a hospitable widow sent a 
servant with a lunch of goats' milk cheeses for the hungry passen- 
gers. We spent the night in Peralta, at the house of a wealthy 
native farmer. 

Would Senor have supper ? 

Ilad they any tea ? 

'Si, Senor.' 

'Any eggs ?' 

' Si, Senor.' 

' Any mutton ?' 

'Si, Senor.' 

Then Senor would have supper, if those articles could be pre- 
pared without onions or red peppers. It proved a savory repast. 

The house, better furnished than most here, had only two rude 
chairs. Mattresses served for seats by day and beds by night. 
The smooth, whitewashed walls were hung with crucifixes, and 
saints in lithograph. 

Our swarthy landlord was busy with his peons gathering corn, for 
November was close at hand. His young wife, pretty, intelligent 
and vivacious, went soberly about the rooms with a huge bunch 
of keys dangling by her side. She was the only comely Mexican 



1859.] PASSING THROUGH ALBUQUERQUE. 2-i9 

woman I ever saw ; and her little girl of two years had a face and 
figure which would have driven a sculptor mad with despair. 
The 3^outhful matron, to enlarge my little vocabulary of Span- 
ish, patiently repeated the names of objects about her house and 
court. Any dullard would acquire Castilian under such a 
teacher. She spoke no English. Some idea of New Mexico 
socially may be gathered from the statement made to me before 
leaving El Paso, that this lady was the only woman reputed chaste 
on the entire route to Santa Fe, three hundred and fifty miles 
through the most populous portion of the Territory. 

We passed Albuquerque, (population, three thousand,) one of 
the richest and pleasantest towns, with a Spanish cathedral and 
other buildings more than two hundred years old. AVhilc we 
were halting, an enormous pile of patent office reports and other 
public documents sent hither by a member of Congress, at the pub- 
lic expense, was sold at auction for thirty-seven-and-a-half cents. 
The shrewd purchaser, an illiterate Mexican, declared that he 
wanted them for fire-wood. It showed one of the many beauties 
of the franking privilege. 

A disgusted immio^rant from Pike's Peak also arrived with 
nine yokes of oxen, vowing that he wished himself back on the 
rich Nebraska prairies, that he would not exchange his cattle for 
all the land between Fort Kearney and Albuquerque, but would 
push on till he found a country fit for white men, whether it took 
him to the Gulf of Mexico or to the bottomless pit. 

On the road beyond, farmers were treading out their wheat with 
horses and oxen precisely as did the children of Israel three 
thousand years ago. Others were cutting corn with a rude hoe- 
like instrument, threshing wheat upon the ground with lono^, 
clumsy poles and mowing grass with sickles. The ruder and older 
the implements the better they suit the Mexican. His farminor 
tools show no improvement upon those of his Aztec forefathers. 
His plow is only a crooked stick. ^lerchants endeavored to intro- 
duce iron plows but could not persuade the natives to adopt them. 
Threshing machines also were brought from the Missouri, but the 
ignorant farmers who hire ground, paying the rent with a portion 
of tlie crop, believed them a diabolical invention for cheating 
them out of their share of wheat 1 



250 



ARRIVAL IN SANTA FE. 



[1859. 



After spending a night at Algondes we turned eastward from 
the Eio Grande. A lonelj, mountain journey of a few hours 
brought us into Santa Fe. 

All New Mexican settlements look venerable. The adobe build- 
ings with grated windows and low carved doors all suggest : 

' The events 
Of old and -wondrous times, 
"Which dim tradition interruptedly teaches.' 

Titles to estates, two hundred years old, are still preserved in the 
public archives, and in Taos there is a dwelling of Indian origin 




A MEXICAN FARil-ilOUSE. 



which tradition declares was built three centuries ago. In the 
narrow, crooked streets one looks instinctively for the haughty 
Spaniard, in complete steel, striking terror to the hearts of the 
natives. 

Santa Fe de San Francisco, (the city of the holy faith of St. 
Francis,) was begun in the fifteenth century. Its founders were 
of that wonderful Order whose unflagging zeal and perfect organi- 



1859.] HIGHEST TOWN IN THE UNION. 251 

zation almost achieved tbe conquest of the world. Traces of old 
Jesuit missions abound throughout California, Arizona, New 
Mexico, old Mexico, and Central America. These vast regions 
were converted to the Roman faith by patient life-long labors of 
the Society of Jesus, not by the furious zeal of Cortez and his 
fellow robbers who hurled the native idols down the steps of their 
temples, to replace them with the cross. New Mexico, thoroughly 
Roman Catholic, contains only one Protestant church and one 
Protestant school. 

Santa Fe, the political and business metropolis, now boasted 
four thousand inhabitants, of whom three or four hundred were 
Americans. On the sunny side of the plaza sat dirty boys, 
shriveled, blanketed old men and hideous women vending tortillas, 
bread, mutton, onions, tomatoes, red peppers and cand}'. The 
buildings were all adobe save the unfinished capitol and the peni- 
tentiary — both of stone — and one frame edifice. None except the 
cathedral and a smaller church were more than one story high. 

Santa Fe, the highest town of any importance in the United 
States, nestles among the mountains seven thousand feet above sea 
level. Tlie overlooking peaks are white with snow. One summer 
all the ice in the city was bought by a hotel keeper, who refused 
to sell at any price to a rival house. This was ruin. Cold water 
and hard butter might be dispensed with, but no hotel could live 
here without sherry cobblers among its possibilities. In a moment 
of inspiration the landlord sent a train of donkeys twenty miles 
into the mountains. Tbey came back loaded with huge blocks of 
ice; the cobbler trade revived and prosperity returned to the 
Napoleonic host. 

As in every Spanish American country the natives are inveterate 
gamblers. Soon after he learns to walk, the child risks his first 
penny; and the gray haired man tottering into the grave, stakes 
his only coat or his last dollar. Americans too plunge into games 
of chance with their national recklessness. Thoucrh times were 
now dull, the city contained fifty American 'sporting men,' as 
professional gamblers are politely termed. At the Santa Fe hotel 
I often saw three monte banks in a single room in operation from 
daylight until midnight. They were attended by a motley crowd 
of Indians, Mexicans and whites, darkening the saloon with 



252 



AN EXPERIENCE AT GAMBLING. 



[1859. 



tobacco smoke. The deep silence was broken only by the jingle 
of coins and the suppressed breath of players. Enormous piles 




GAMBLING IX SANTA FE, 



of silver weighed down the tables, and frequently ten thousand 
dollars changed hands in ten minutes. 

Business men would publicly lose or win a thousand dollars 
with the greatest nonchalance. One evening I saw a clerk with 
only five dollars sit down to the game. In a few hours he had 
won a thousand, but before morning he was penniless. A young 
surveyor after winning twelve hundred dollars, left the table, 
saying: 

* When you have a good thing, keep it.' 

During the previous winter, an American had enjoj^-ed a rare 
'run of luck.' Knowing nothing about the game, (and if it was 
honestly conducted no skill nor experience could have aided him,) 
he began betting at monte. Tlie bank always began the evening 
with a capital of a thousand dollars. For a month he staked against 
it, breaking it e\ery night, and theVi. found himself the possessor 
of thirty thousand dollars. Now, his fortune had changed ; every 



1859.] CURIOSITIES AND HORRID TROPHIES. 253 

evening he lost heavily, and doubtless he soon gained his old 
safe stand-point of beggary. 

The Santa Fe cathedral is a huge 'adobe' with effigies of the 
Saviour and the Virgin, and lurid paintings of the sufferings on 
Calvary, decorating its walls. The Sunday congregation was 
chiefly women. Unlike the worshippers at El Paso many had 
adopted the European fashions, and appeared in shawls and 
bonnets. Many too had pleasing features, and all displa3^ed the 
sparkling eyes of their race. Immediately after the services, at the 
church-yard gate, most of the masculines lighted their cigars. 

The old men of Mexican towns look older than an}^ others in 
the world. According to a local proverb, the region is so healthy 
that its aged inhabitants never die, but dry up and are blown 
away! Gaunt, attenuated, wrinkled and blanketed, their youthful 
hose a world too wide for their shrunk shanks, they totter about 
like re-vivified Egyptian mummies, or those uneasy ghosts which, 

* In the mopt high nticl pnlni}' state of Rome, 
A little ere the niiiiluiest Julius fell, 
Did squeak and gibber in the Roinau streets.' 

In the establishment of "William J. Howard, a Santa Fe jeweler, 
I found a long necklace of the first joints of human fingers, col- 
lected by the Utes from Apaches killed in war; and another horrid 
trophy in the form of an Indian scalp with coarse black hair two 
feet long. Among the living wonders were cat-fish with well 
defined legs^ curious lizards, horned frogs and a venerable owl 
which subsisted upon live mice, swallowing them whole. There 
were Aztec battle axes of marble, Comanche pipes of slate, neck- 
laces of bear claws, drinking cups and cooking utensils of Aztec 
and Apache pottery, bows and arrows, spears, shields, curious 
petrifactions of wood, and specimens of native lead, copper, silver, 
amethyst, alabaster, quicksilver and gold — the last very fine and 
beautiful. New Mexico abounds in mineral treasures; and before 
it was Americanized the Mexicans dug gold from its mountains to 
the amount of three hundred thousand dollars per year. Now 
most Americans are engaged in trading; but ere long a mining 
excitement will cause immigrants to pour in and revolutionize the 
country socially and politically. 

17 



254 FAMILIES OF WHITE INDIANS. [1859. 

Some silver mining is done, but the general feeling is expressed 
by the Mexican jn'overb that only three classes of men work silver 
mines : those who have other people's money to spend, those who 
have more money than they know what to do with, and, fools, 

Mr, Howard collected his curiosities during a visit to the Zunians 
a branch of the Pueblo Indians among the mountains, far from 
any white settlers or Mexicans, Among them he found four 
white Indians with blue eyes and flaxen hair. Tradition asserts 
that a few families of the tribe have always been of this com- 
plexion. The other Zunians make these whites perform all the 
manual labor, refusing to associate or intermarry with them, I 
have already related how the mixed Choctaws render pure whites 
ineligible to their highest offices. And I remember a Kansas 
Delaware half-breed, so indignant because three or four mulatto 
boys were admitted to the only accessible school, that he permitted 
his eight children to grow up in ignorance. Though some of our 
fantastic tricks before high heaven may make the angels weep, our 
prejudices against color must make them smile. 

All groceries and other supplies for New Mexico were hauled 
from the Missouri, New York to Kansas City (railroads) four- 
teen hundred miles; freights one and a half cents per pound. 
Kansas City to Santa Fe (wagon roads) eight hundred and forty 
miles; ten cents per pound. Moral: the Pacific Railway, 

Dancing, a passion with the ancient Aztecs and mingling in all 
their religious exercises, continues the staple amusement of their 
mixed descendants. There were three or four fandangoes in 
Santa Fe every night, the Mexicans always participating with 
wonderful zest. 

There were only one or two American ladies in the Territory ; 
though the number has since increased. Many native women 
were mistresses of the white residents by the consent, even the 
desire, of their degraded husbands. Chastity is practically un- 
known among them, but they possess all the other distinctive vir- 
tues of their sex. These poor creatures, utterly devoid of personal 
purity, willing to give or suffer any thing to obtain jewelry and 
silks, are uniformly tender and self sacrificing, ready to divide 
their last crust with the hungry, and deny themselves every com- 
fort to nurse the sick and minister to the wretched. 



1859.] FASCINATION OF BORDER LIFE. 255 

Is there some drop of Bedouin blood even in the blue veins of civ- 
ilized man? In 1855, Sir George Gore an Irish nobleman with an 
annual income of two hundred thousand dollars, buried himself in 
the Rocky Mountains to spend two years in hunting, fishing and 
periling his scalp among the Indians. The few white residents of 
this Territory find strange fascination in its isolation, lawlessness 
and danger. Whenever I asked if they did not find it lonely, 
they indignantly replied that no temptation could induce them to 
return to their former homes. An old trader, Colonel Ceran St. 
Vrain, after accumulating an ample fortune, went to New York 
city with the determination of spending his days. But he found 
life there insupportable, and soon returned to New Mexico vowing 
he would never leave it again. 

Here, as in Arizona and Idaho, the Indians are always trouble- 
some. A year before my visit, William J. Rose, with twenty 
families a costly stock of goods and three hundred and fifty cattle, 
started for California. The Mojaves captured the goods stock and 
wagons, and killed several of the emigrants. One j'outh, shot 
from his horse, was lying half insensible with an arrow sticking in 
his liead, when a savage approached with a bloody knife. The 
boy had made up his mind to die, but scalping was more than he 
bargained for. Terror inspired him with such new vigor that he 
leaped upon his horse and the faithful animal bore him out of 
danger. Rose lost every dollar of his property, but in this novel 
region however far down one sank in the deep, deep sea of pe- 
cuniary ruin, he soon rose again. Now, Rose was the flourishing 
landlord of the Santa Fe hotel, with au income of a thousand 
dollars per week. 



256 A STRAY PRINTER AND JOURNALIST. [1859. 



CHAPTER XXII. 

I DESIGNED returning from Santa Fe by the weekly mail direct 
to Kansas City, eight hundred and forty miles. But the Kiowa 
Indians after blockading the route for a month, had captured the 
two last eastward coaches, stolen the stock and left thirteen pas- 
sengers, including two women, killed and scalped by the road- 
side. The indignation of the people at the failure of Government 
to protect immigrants and freighters, found vent in maledictions in 
bastard Spanish and broken English. 

My own line of march was cut off. Eastward the Kansas City 
route might remain closed for months. I could retrace my steps 
south to El Paso, and return by the Butterfield Line; but with 
that, familiarity had bred contempt. Northward, toward Pike's 
Peak, were no carriage roads, but the lonely trail promised novelty 
and adventure. 

While I was pondering upon ways and means, a 'sjiorting man ' 
introduced himself as a stray New York printer and journalist, 
and inquired if he could serve me. I wanted to reach Taos; and 
as good luck would have it, he desired to send thither a pony 
which he had borrowed from a Taos Indian. Gladl}- accepting 
the proffer, I sold all my luggage except one blanket and a few 
indispensables which could be pressed into saddle bags. 

At the hotel supper-table I noticed a stout middle-aged man, 
with straight brown hair, mild eye and kindly face. He v^^ore a 
suit of gray, and looked like an Illinois farmer; but when ho 
took off his hat the face and head indicated character. My 
printer-gambler friend nodded to the new-comer, and I asked : 

' Who is he ?' 

' Kit Carson, the mountaineer.' 



1859.] 



A RIDE WITH KIT CARSOX 



257 




KIT CAEdOX. 



Carson was about returning home to Taos, and at ten the next 
morning we galloped away together. He was reputed the most 
darino; and reckless of riders. I 
had not mounted a horse for months 
and was still weak and reduced in 
flesh. But we flew over the rocks 
through canyons and across ditches 
until my blood tingled to the finger- 
tips. Kit's special delight was to 
dash down steep hills at full gallop. 
This new experience made mc shud- 
der. But he was far heavier than I 
and his American horse nearly twice 
as tall as my little steed. Moreover 
Indian ponies rarely stumble, so the 
odds were largely in my favor. Our 

road was nearly all hills; and after three or four trials I began to 
enjoy it and to forget the Spanish proverb : 'xi running horse is an 
open sepulcher.' On foot Carson looks stout and ungraceful. He 
avers that much riding with the short stirrups of the border has 
made him bow-legged ; but he sits a horse splendidly and rides 
with rare grace and skill. 

He declares that the happiest years of his life were spent as a 
mountain trapper. Like all men in constant peril and excite- 
ments, the trappers found strange fascination in their dangerous 
career, though the rifles and arrows of bloodthirsty savages made 
it a constant race with death. They adopted the dress and habits 
of the Aborigines, buying one or more squaws to lighten their 
labors and ' rear their dusky race.' Kit gave me a striking illu&- 
tration of the healthfulness of mountain air and out-door life : 

' Our ordinary fare consisted of fresh beaver and buffalo-meat, 
without any salt, bread, or vegetables. Once or twice a year, 
when supplies arrived from the States, we had flour and coffee for 
one or two meals, though they cost one dollar a pint. During the 
winter, visiting our traps twice a day, we were often compelled to 
break the ice, and wade in the water up to our waists. Notwith- 
standing these hardships sickness was absolutely unknown among 
us. I lived ten years in the mountains, with from one to three 



258 HIS HAIR-BREADTH 'sCAPES. [1859. 

L.undred trappers, and I cannot remember tliat a single one of 
tliem died from disease.' 

In that golden age of the trappers, beaver-skins commanded, 
eight dollars a pound, and every stream and canyon was rich in 
game. Now, beavers and otters were almost extinct, and the few 
remaining trappers, like true conservatives, sighed for the ' good 
old times.' 

With something of the modesty of true greatness Carson never 
spoke of his own exploits except in reply to my questions. Tlien 
he described some exciting battles, including the story of four 
trappers in a mountain stronghold who kept a hundred and fift}^ 
Blackfeet at bay for half a day, and finall}' defeated them. He 
said that as a boy he was daring and reckless ; but now when 
traveling he exercised great vigilance, having seen many of his 
comrades killed by Indians through their own carelessness. Once 
he was in the Snake Indian country, with five companions. One 
night a party of wily Sioux, completely disguised in wolf-skins, 
and tapping buffalo bones together to imitate the snapping of 
wolves' teeth, stole into their camp so adroitly that they never 
suspected their visitors to be human until they rose up with a 
yell and began to shoot. All the whites were killed except 
Carson. 

The flesh of a wild horse he deemed better than any other meat. 
A young mule famished excellent steaks, but meat from an old 
one was tough, sti'ong-flavored, and unpalatable. The most 
sorrowful meal he ever took was when necessity compelled him 
to kill and eat a faithful horse which had borne him many 
hundred miles. He loved Fremont and spoke enthusiastically 
of the pleasant years they spent together. 

Our road led over barren plains and among snow-streaked 
mountains; but passed some rich valley -farms, with speckled 
ripening corn and plump wheat. 

Turning our horses out to graze, we lunched upon bread and 
dried bufiiilo meat, and smoked our mid-day cigars upon the 
grassy bank of a clear stream, in the Canada (pronounced ' can-2/a- 
tha,') a battle-ground of the Mexican war. Here General Sterling 
Price, with four hundred Americans, defeated two thousand Mexi- 
cans. Histories describe the charge of his soldiers up the steep 



1859.] HOSPITALITY OF THE MEXICAN. 259 

liill-side as bloody and gallant, adding in confirmation that tLe 
Americans lost one man ! 

Starting again we struck the Rio Grande, here an insignificant 
stream in a narrow valley. At four, P. M., the sun had disap- 
peared ; so we halted at a spacious adobe whose swarth}" owner 
received us in great dirt and dignitj^ We performed our ablu- 
tions in the little acequia or irrigating canal; supped on mutton, 
frijoles and eggs and slept on floor- mattresses with 3'ellow-haired 
saints and a pink-faced virgin staring down from the walls. 

Breakfasting at daylight before our host was up, we left a quar- 
ter-eagle upon his table and started on. The hospitable Mexican 
entertains all travelers, but never demands payment, leaving 
that question wholly to his guest. 

We galloped through El Ambudo, (the funnel,) in 1847 scene 
of another sanguinary battle, in which two hundred Americans 
under a raking fire dislodired five hundred of their foes, and had 
but one man killed ! That is our version ; but like the lion in the 
fable the Mexicans had no painter. 

We entered a dark cold canj^on, its frowning walls crowned 
with odorous pine and hemlock. The mountain scenery grew so 
wild that I lingered behind my companion to enjo}'- it. In a 
lonely dell I was stopped by two brawny Indians, who imperiously 
demanded whisky and tobacco, and manifested an unpleasing 
interest in mv saddle-bags. A handful of smokino^ tobacco foiling; 
to satisfy them, I drew my revolver and sternl}^ motioned them 
away. They instantly obeyed; but had they known how poor a 
marksman I was they would have laughed in my face. Next I 
encountered a party of Aj^aches moving their village, with chil- 
dren and household utensils in baskets suspended from the 
dragging lodge-poles. 

At two, P. M., sore in ever}' joint, from the ride of eighty 
miles, equal to one hundred and twenty upon level roads, I 
reached Taos, and was soon housed under Carson's roof. 

Taos, (named from an Indian tribe now extinct,) beside the 
narrow, flashing Taos river which gushes from the mountains a 
few miles above, has two thousand five hundred inhabitants. It 
is the third city of New Mexico, Santa Fe being the first and 
Albuquerque the second. With irrigation its valley produces 



260 



THE VICTIM OF A BIOGRAPHEB. 



[1859,. 



bountiful crops of wheat whicli is chiefly converted into whisky 
known throughout the far West as ' Taos lightning,' The native 
women are the most comely in the Territory. 

Here at the age of fifty Kit Carson had settled to crown a youth 
of labor with an age of ease. His wife was an intelligent Spanish 
lady, and his home was brightened by four or five children. He 




MEXICAN CARRIAGES. 



had accumulated a handsome competence and was now Govern- 
ment agent for the Ute Indians with a salary of one thousand 
dollars per year. Owning a large farm with many horses and 
mules, he designed thenceforward to avoid horseback riding and 
travel onl}^ in carriages, — a plan which he doubtless carried out 
as far as practicable in a country destitute of wagon roads. 

He is by birth a Kentuckian, of excellent abilities but narrow 
education. Eeading with difficulty, and writing little beyond his 
own name, he speaks fluently English, French, Spanish, and sev- 
eral Indian tongues, all acquired orally. As if figuring fancifully 
in romances numerous and yellow-covered were not misfortune 
enough, he is also the victim of a biographer. His romantic life 
is set forth in a large octavo volume, from data furnished by 
himself to a persistent author. He confessed to me — most modest 



1859.] 



ALL ABOUT MEXICAN DONKEYS. 



261 



of heroes — that he had looked into the book here and there but 
had never read it ! 

He is a gentleman bj instinct ; upright, pure, and simple-hearted, 
beloved alike by Indians, Mexicans, and Americans. When serv- 
ing as scout and guiding Fremont on his explorations he held a 
lieutenant's commission in our arm v. After several vears of civil 
life he was made a brigadier general of volunteers during the war 
for tlie Union, and he now commands a fort in New Mexico. 

The narrow streets of Taos, like those of Santa Fe and El Paso; 
are usually crowded with ' Mexican carriages.' The burro, or 
donkey, little larger than a Newfoundland dog, serves for mule, 
ox, horse, cart, and barouche. He staggers like a runaway haj^- 
stack under huge loads of grass, straw, husks, and corn-stalks. 
He brings fi'ora the mountains enormous piles of pine and cedar 
for fuel. He transports trunks, sacks of coffee, kegs, and even 
barrels of whisky. Often he carries burdens quite as heavy as 
himself. "Women and children jog soberly along upon the patient 
little beast. .They use neither saddle nor bridle but guide him 
by a club, mercilessly thwacking his thick skull. While making a 
call or visiting a trading house they leave him alone for hours. They 
' hitch ' him by throw- 
ing a blanket over his 
head which blindfolds 
him and prevents his 
stirring an inch. The du- 
ties of the burro are as 
varied, exactmg, and lit- 
tle appreciated as those 
of a country clergyman 
or a metropolitan editor. 
He ought to take the place 
of the eagle on the na- 
tional device of the Mexi- 
can republic. 

The American residents 
claimed that the instinctive hostility of the natives, who formed a 
majority upon all juries, rendered it impossible to punish any 
Mexican through the courts, for the grossest outrages upon 'white 




HITCHING A DONKEY. 



262 THE REBELLION OF 1847. [1859. 

men.' This was their excuse for wearing revolvers and knives 
and wreaking private revenge for every real or fancied injury. 
Homicides even among themselves were common ; and in that 
marvelously healthful climate there was some foundation for the 
current proverb that Yankees never died except from revolver 
shots, hard drinking, or a personal vice still more repulsive. 

I heard a hopeful American youth of seventeen, who with 
drawn bowie knife had wantonly attacked a native at a fandango, 
bitterly regret that he was not able to 'cut the Greaser in two' 
before they were separated. And a burly Mexican, in a frenzy 
of anger, cut off the ears of his wife 1 For a timid gentleman of 
quiet habits the society was not alluring ! 

Our Government acquired this extensive Territory almost with- 
out bloodshed during the Mexican war. A year after its annexa- 
tion, in a general rebellion which began at Taos, Mexicans and 
Indians massacred Governor William Bent, every other United 
States civil officer whether of Mexican or American birth, and most 
of the white private citizens. Carson was absent from home, but 
the savages who took every thing from his house even stole all the 
clothing from his wife's person except her chemise. They scalped 
their victims and burned out the eyes of one, a lawyer from Ohio, 
before life was extinct. Friendly native women had given fre- 
quent warnings, and some escaped the massacre by flight. The 
national authority was soon restored and eighteen of the murderers 
were hanged. 

The old Aztec priests had the confessional, granted absolution 
and taught the people to dramatize scenes in the lives of their 
gods. These customs were easilj' assimilated to the new faith. 
During Holy week, in all large towns, churches and altars are 
richly adorned, priests appear in gorgeous robes, and figures of 
the Saviour and the virgin, as large as life, are exhibited. 

The European ' mysteries ' of the middle ages originated with 
returned pilgrims from the Holy Land, who, in public streets, 
leaning upon well-worn staffs, and wearing cloaks and chaplets 
picturesquely decorated with shells and images, recited poems 
describing the consecrated spots they had visited, interwoven with 
traditions, simple and extravagant, of Christ and the apostles. In 
time pious citizens erected stages for these performances. One of 



1859.] CURIOUS RELIGIOUS CUSTOMS OF NATIVES. 263 

the quaint dramas represented the beloved apostle cast into a 
caldron of boilino; oil. Another exhibited the eleven drawin<2f lots 
with straws for a successor to the apostate Judas. Some be- 
gan with the creation and ended with the last judgment — at least 
a comprehensive plan. Even the Almighty was personated ; and 
anecdotes are preserved of one curate who came near expiring on 
the cross, and another, who while playing Judas and hanging 
upon a tree narrowly escaped suffocation through the slipping of 
his rope. The New Mexican devotees closely imitate their medi- 
eval prototypes, enacting the trial of Christ, the ghastly death, the 
watching of the body by Pontius Pilate, (!) and other incidents 
real, fanciful, and grotesque in the first great tragedy of the Chris- 
tian religion. 

The Aztec priests fasted and did cruel penance, scourging and 
piercing themselves with thorns, until blood streamed from their 
wounds. The Penitentes^ a secret society of the most ignorant 
Catholics including many criminals, still reproduce these horrors. 
They speitd Easter week in a secluded lodge or ranch, dragging 
stones, crucifixes, and other heavy burdens, cutting their flesh 
with swords, and tearing it with cactus thorns. On Thursday and 
Friday, wearing only drawers, they arc led blindfolded through 
the streets, lashing themselves with a tough weed until blood flows 
freel}^, sometimes to the infliction of fatal injuries. These tortures 
end in the cathedral, where they represent the darkness and 
chaos which they believe followed the crucifixion. After again 
lashing their bodies pitilessly, they remain in total darkness for 
an hour, groaning, shrieking, and hurling sticks and stones. This 
week of penance they deem ample atonement for all their sins of 
the 3'ear. 

The priests (Irish and French, with a few natives) are often 
very ignorant. Nearly all live openly with mistresses, whose 
children bear the mother's name, though their paternity is neither 
concealed nor denied. The priests' marriage fees range from ten 
to one hundred dollars. Among the poor, burial costs from one 
dollar to one hundred, according to the distance of the grave 
from the altar. The wealthy are sometimes charged a thousand 
dollars for interment in sacred earth. 

The personal names of these devout Catholics startle Protestant 



264 



MEXICAN PEONAGE VERSUS SLAVERY 



[1859. 



ears. I encountered one dirty, cut-throat looking Mexican bearing 
the appelatioii Juan de Dios — ' John of God ;' and received an 

invitation to a haile 
at the house of Don 
Jesus Vigil. Jesus 
(pronounced iTe-soos) is 
very common ; one na- 
tive near Taos is called 
Jesus Christo. 

Degenerate descend- 
ants of that strange race, 
whose ' gorgeous semi- 
civilization' was once 
the world's wonder, 
modern Mexicans are 
treacherous, effeminate, 
cowardly and super- 
stitious, almost meritinor 
John Eandoljjh's bitter 
invective: 'a blanketed 
nation of thieves and 
harlots.' 
Conceded to the southern Propagandists, New Mexico kept 
the word of promise to the ear and broke it to the hope. With 
tlie most barbarous and rigid slave code in the entire Union, 
(shrewdly enacted by native legislators to secure favor from 
Buchanan's administration) the slaves within her borders numbered 
less than twenty. Peon labor was cheaper, and the Mexican 
would treat the African as an equal. A disgusted Southron com- 
plained to me: 

' Before a nigger has been here a month he knows more than his 
master.' 

Pueblo (Spanish : ' a village') is the name applied to a scattered 
race of half-civilized Indians who live in towns and claim to be 
unmixed descendants of the ancient Aztecs. They never inter- 
marry with whites, and their women (almost the solitary exception 
to Indian tribes in general) are reputed inflexibly chaste. Each 
of their twenty villages is independent, with a democratic govern^ 




PEXITENTES LASHING V liEilSEL VES. 



1859.] AMONG THE PUEBLO INDIANS. 265 

ment. The largest nestles at the foot of the mountains two miles 
from Taos. The huge adobe buildings which look like fortresses, 
are of five or six stories, each smaller than the one beneath, and 
forming a terrace, till one little chamber crowns the whole. There 
are no doors on the ground floor, but inmates ascend to the roof 
of the first story by a ladder — drawing it up at night, for security 
against intruders — and enter by a trap-door. They formerly kept 
sentinels upon the house-top, but in these piping times of peace 
the custom is discarded. Each dwelling contains many families. 

One evening I saw a muscular Pueblo native in no clothing 
except a breech cloth, standing upon his roof apparently engaged 
in worship. Noticing me, he discontinued his orisons, and with 
pantomimic eloquence attempted to sell, first a plate o^frijoles then 
a string of peppers, then some enormous squashes. Failing in all 
these he crowned his commercial attempts by pointing at the pony 
I bestrode and uttering his only English word : 

* Swap ?' 

My negative was the last grain of sand, and he turned despair- 
ingly away. Hard by stood the old church with crumbling walls, 
wliich one thousand five hundred insurgent Mexicans and Pueblos 
occupied as a fort after the massacres of 1847. The attacking 
Americans, numbering four hundred, w^ere led b}^ Kit Carson and 
Colonel St. Yrain. After skirmishing for an entire da}' the rebels 
retreated. The hindmost fifty were killed almost to a man, by a 
Government force lying in ambush near their road. 

Though these anomalous Indians are professed Catholics, some 
vaguely worship a great Father who lives where the sun rises, and 
a great Mother whose home is where it sets. A few who adhere 
to the Aztec faith, cherish a tradition that Montezuma established 
this Taos village, taught them to build pueblos, and kindled 
sacred fires for their priests to guard. That he also founded the 
pueblo at Pecos, where he planted a tree, predicting that after his 
disappearance there would be no rain, and a foreign race would 
subjugate them. But he commanded them to keep the sacred fires 
burning until the fall of the tree, when white men from the east 
would overwhelm their oppressors, rain would again increase and 
he would soon reestablish his kingdom. They aver that the tree 
fell just as the triumphant Americans entered Santa Fe in 1816. 



266 THEIR SUPERSTITIONS AND TRADITIONS. [1859. 

For years tlie Indians of that pueblo had been decreasing ; and 
just then an old man the last in the long line of priesthood died 
at his post, and the holy fire was extinguished. 




THE TAOS PUEBLO. 

Tlje country indicates tliat in former ngcs rain was much more 
abundant than now; and the Pueblos point triumphantly to the 
fact that it has increased since the advent of the whites. In the 
mountains they still burn the hallowed llanies, and anxiously 
await the return of Montezuma. In some pueblos a sentinel 
regularlj^ climbs to the house-top at sunrise and looks toward tlie 
east for his coming. 

Like the men of Mars Hill they believe in ' the unknown God,' 
whose name is too holy to be spoken. They hold sacred all 
animals living in or near water, which in their rainless climate is 
the choicest of blessin2:s. 

They have a tradition that at the flood a few faithful Zunians 
gathered upon a mountain top, and waited long but in vain for the 
waters to subside. At last, a youth of royal blood and a beautiful 



1859.] STRANGE OLD AZTEC RUINS. 267 

virgin, decorated with feathers, were let down from the cliff as a 
propitiatory offering to the angry Deity. The waters soon fell, and 
youth and maiden were transformed into statues of stone, still 
pointed out to the credulous among the Zuni mountains. 

A hundred miles southeast of Santa Fe are extensive saline 
lakes supplying the entire Territory with salt. Near them the 
ruins of a city contain the remains of an aqueduct twelve miles 
long, walls of churches, Castilian coats of arras and deep pits in 
the earth. It was probably a Spanish ^Iver mining town de- 
stroyed in 1680, when the natives killed or drove out all the in- 
vaders. The ruins of several walled towns reveal pottery and 
other articles similar to those found in the city of Mexico. Ruins 
in Navajoe county include the remains of enormous houses, of im- 
posing architecture. In some, explorers have counted the traces 
of one hundred and sixty distinct rooms upon the ground floor. 
The fallen beams and rafters were hewn with dull axes apparently 
of stone. 

JSTearl}^ three hundred years ago, Spanish missionaries found in 
New Mexico half-civilized Indians who raised cotton, manufac- 
tured cloth, and lived in towns with regular streets squares and 
dwellings like those of the present Pueblos. 

Dr. J. S. Newberry of the United States army, found remark- 
able ruins of old pueblos on the San Juan river, then in New 
^[exico now in the southwest corner of Colorado. One of these 
deserted human bee-hives was inclosed by sandstone walls five 
hundred feet long, twelve inches thick and thirty feet high, and 
as true and smooth as the walls of the Astor House. The marks 
on the few timbers still preserved, and implements found in the 
vicinity, indicate that logs and rocks were split and hewn with 
tools of hard stone. The huge edifice, six stories high, was di- 
vided into small rooms, very evenly and beautifully plastered with 
g\'psum. 

The San Juan valley contains many of these ruins which, have 
been deserted from three hundred to five hundred years. Once it 
swarmed with the busy life of half a million of people, now it has 
no human being. Dr. Newberry inquired the reason of this from 
an old and intelligent Pueblo chief, who replied that at the invasion 
by Cortez, Montezuma made such heavy drafts upon the able- 



268 GEOLOGICAL CHANGES IN THE COUNTRY. [1859. 

bodied men of the province as to leave old men, women and 
children unable to defend themselves from the surrounding Utes, 
Apaches and Navajoes, and compeled the entire population to 
emigrate southward. This theory is supported by the fact that 
the most ancient pueblos, which were built in mountain fastnesses 
easily defensible against numbers and valor, are still inhabited, 
while those in the open country are deserted. 

Hundreds of acres of large cedars, all dead from drowth, and 
the circumstance that no water is found within miles of many of 
these ruined cities, prove that the countr}^ was once far less dry 
than now. Tlie elevation of the land for a few feet through 
some geological agency or the depression of the surface of the 
Gulf o( California, would have been suflicient to j^roduce the 
change. 

The approach of winter forbade me to linger among the 
strange scenery, inhabitants, antiquities and traditions of this most 
interesting and least known of all our Territories. Three times 
larger than New England, it is all mountainous. Even the narrow 
valleys of the streams are tillable only with irrigation. It has no 
navigable rivers. Though the Rio Grande is two thousand miles 
long, vessels ascend only two hundred miles above its mouth. 

Of the civilized inhabitants, two thousand are Americans and 
sixtj^-six thousand Mexicans. Fierce Indians rove the mountain 
ranges, and number about forty-four tliousand. Twice or thrice 
New Mexico has suffered from the frontier epidemic of constitu- 
tion-making; but until new gold discoveries bring in thousands 
of immigrants to develop its rich and varied mineral resources, 
and revolutionize its industries and social life, it will not and 
should not be admitted to the Union as a sovereign Stata 



1859.] FROM TAOS TO DENVER, COLORADO. 269 



CHAPTER XXIII. 

From Taos to Denver, three hundred miles due north, a lonely 
mountain trail led through the range of the murderous Utes. 
I lingered, hoping to find companions for the journey, but as 
winter was at hand no one was starting northward. Miners were 
daily arriving from Denver to pass the cold months in Mexico. 
Some declared the trail as safe as Broadway. Others pronounced 
the journey madness, and its inevitable price a lost scalp. As the 
Fort Smith fever had left my crown bare, taking this would be no 
easy matter. But I felt like the Scotchman about his head, that 
while ' nae much of a ' scalp it would be ' a sair loss ' to me. 
A third class of immigrants had no apprehensions about the sav- 
ages, but laid great stress upon the danger of perishing among 
mountain snows. 

Despairingly I appealed to Kit Carson as final authorit}'-. He 
replied with a smile that the road, always perilous to a stranger 
unfamiliar with Indian warfore, was more so toward winter than 
during the warm months. Just now too there was some possible 
danger from the Utes. Still if I deemed the trip necessary he 
had little doubt that I could make it successfully. 

I bought a thin, iron-gray pony, two years and a half old, so 
Liliputian that satirical friends advised me to start upon a rocking 
horse instead. Even Carson was skeptical of the little brute's 
capacity. My own confidence was serene, based upon long expe- 
rience with the hardy creatures, during which I had never known 
one to die from overwork or any other cause. The entire cost of 
pony, saddle, bridle, spurs and lariat was thirty-six dollars. 

I. On the twenty-fifth of October, with Liliput almost buried 
under rider, heavy blanket and plethoric saddle-bags, I bade 

18 



270 A POLYGLOT LANDLORD. [1859. 

adieu to kind friends in Tcaos, and galloped away toward the latest 
El Dorado. Carson obligingly accompanied me for an hour. 
Pointing at an isolated mountain, a dozen miles away he said ; 

' Your general course is directly toward that butte.' 

' Shall I reach it to night ?' 

' Hardly ! I see you have not learned to estimate distances in 
this clear atmosphere. Next time we meet, remember to tell me 
how long you were in getting to it.' 

Soon he turned homeward and I was sorry to lose sight of his 
kind, trust-inspii-ing face. 

After a solitary mountain ride of twenty-eight miles I dis- 
mounted at Beaubean's trading-post, beside a rushing transparent 
little stream bearing the name Colorado, so frequent in Spanish 
nomenclature. Beaubean was a Frenchman whom long inter- 
course with this mixed population had converted into a bewil- 
dered polyglot. With profuse bows and in a medle}^ of French, 
German, Spanish, English, and Indian, he begged me to pardon his 
poor lodgings and his fare so unfit to set before a gentleman. As 
a sequel to this preamble he gave me a supper of mutton and eggs, 
the best meal I had eaten in New Mexico, served upon snowy 
linen, in a pleasant room. Then through the long evening I 
lounsfed in a luxurious arm-chair, readinsr before mv cheerful fii'e 
with many glances through the skeleton window at tall snow- 
crowned mountains, with yawning black can3-ons between. 

The dirt floor was smooth and luird. The mud walls, dressed 
with a trowel and whitewashed, could hardlv be distinguished 
from the finest plastering. Tiiey were hung with ])ictures of 
saints, and crucifixes, curiously intermingled with views of horse 
races and cock fights. The mattress upon the floor, covered with 
fine blankets of whitest wool, was quite luxurious. That after- 
noon in a wretched hovel across the narrow street, a little child 
had fallen into the fire and been burned to death. Now shrieks 
and moans rending the air, showed that in one dusky bosom 
under all its rags and wretchedness the mother-heart was beat- 
ing. 

II. Soon after sunrise I rode on among scattered ranches with 
valley-fields of corn and wheat. Irrigation makes the parched, 
sandy soil wonderfully productive. In most wheat-growing States 



1859.] BEFORE THE SUTLER'S FIRE. 271 

a yield of fifteen fold from the seed is an excellent crop. But this 
seeming desert often produces fifty fold and sometimes a hundred 
fold. It is not adapted to Indian corn on account of the cold 
nights. In winter farmers do not feed stock ; the cattle subsist 
upon a wild sage so tall that it is seldom hidden by the snow. 

Crossing the Costilla (rib) river I dined at the trading-house of 
Mr. Posthoff, a German resident of gentlemanly manners and 
liberal culture, with whom I s^Dcnt an agreeable afternoon and 
night 

Near by was a Mexican grist-mill — not the human variety 
already depicted but yet almost as primitive. It is simply a hori- 
zontal water-wheel connected by an upright shaft with the mill- 
stone one story above. The stone, revolving no faster than the 
wheel, grinds but slowly, and having no bolting apparatus turns 
out very coarse flour. There are a few improved steam mills in 
the Territory. Day's travel twentj'-one miles. 

III. My morning route over the desert abounded in wnld sage, 
cactus, and great herds of antelopes. At noon as usual I broiled 
a bit of pork upon a long stick by my little camp-fire, and made 
tea in my drinking cup. Liliput found excellent grazing on the 
banks of the Culebra (snake) creek. The afternoon ride was de- 
lightful — among grand old mountains with ever shifting colors, 
water worn sides and whitened crests — a 

'Lapse into tlie glad release 
Of Nature's own, exceeding peace.' 

At last from a hill-top, I had a dim shadow-like view of Fort 
Garland far below, its adobe walls dotting the foir valley of a 
creek fringed with cottonwoods, and the Stars and Stripes floating 
over it. Late in the cold evening I reached it, after a day's 
journey of thirty-three miles. 

The post-sutler Mr. Francisco was far-famed for his hospitality. 
Around his cheerful fire I found several gentlemen wdio brousrht 
the latest word of old comrades and new mines in the gold region. 
One told me that of seven intimate friends who resided in Santa 
Fe fourteen years before, he was now the only survivor. All the 
rest had been killed by Indians or in drunken affrays. 



272 OUT-DOOK MOUNTAIN LODGINGS. [1859. 

IV. This morning I reached the mountain which Carson had 
pointed out to me from Taos, the distance having proved tliree 
days' journey, or more than a liundred miles. Here my course 
turned eastward through the Sangre de Christo (blood of Christ) 
canyon, leading from the waters of the Rio Grande to those of 
the Arkansas. Its tall upright walls are worn by streams pouring 
down their sides, and streaked with elk paths. 

The trail crossed the little creek a dozen times in a single mile, 
and soon left it to follow another stream. Liliput climbed the 
steady ascent but slowly, for at that great altitude the atmosphere 
is thin, makes breathing difficult, and compels both bipeds and 
quadrupeds to pause frequently. 

As night approached the air grew nipping and eager. I had 
trusted to luck for a camping place, and was nearly a day's travel 
fi'om human habitation. But iust before sundown I overtook two 
young adventurers with an ox team and a load of wheat. Despite 
their rough attire and sun-browned faces, the moment they spoke, 
they betrayed Yankee origin and they proved to be natives of 
Medfield, ]\[assachusetts. Gladly I accepted their hearty invita- 
tion to lodge with them. 

We climbed wearily a long sharp hill and stood upon the 
summit of a high divide. Behind us, within pistol shot, were 
streams running into the Rio Grande del Norte, which rises among 
the eternal snows of the Rocky Mountains and continues its 
sinuous course to the tropical waters of the gulf. Before us 
were springs which feed the Arkansas ; and far to the east over 
hill and dale, forest and desert, we eould discern its wooded valley 
sixty miles away. 

The scenery was inspiring, but the cold and approaching dark- 
ness were not. Descending a long terraced hill, we halted for the 
night. The wayworn animals were turned loose to graze ; supper 
was cooked and eaten by a log fire ; after a long chat, oar couch 
was extemporized in the open air by spreading a blanket upon the 
frozen ground, and we huddled close under a buffalo robe, without 
even a tree overhead. 

The scene recalled Captain John Smith and his men out on their 
Indian scout in mid-winter. ' The night was cold and dismal ; but,' 
says the stanch old leader, ' we drank our gill of rum each, and 



1859.] 



MEETING A PLUCKY PEDESTRIAN. 



273 



having thanked God, slept soundly, though surrounded by mani- 
fold dangers.' 

As the guest, my new companions had placed me in the middle 
where the temperature was endurable ; though whether sleeping or 
waking I had a dim consciousness of cold. TJiey found it in- 
tolerable, and often arose to warm themselves by the fire. 

V. Soon after sunrise I bade them adieu and was again on the 
road. Tlie first creek I crossed, though running water, was frozen 
so hard that it bore pony and rider, and gave me new appreciation 
of the intense cold of the night. 

Thus far I had not forgotten the alleged danger of this solitary 
journe}^, and had plumed myself a little upon facing it. But now I 
met a miner from Pike's Peak coming on foot over the same route 
and bearing upon his shoulders his blankets, provisions, frying- 
pan, ax and rifle. Oar brief 
exchange of greetings showed 
that he regarded the journey as 
a mere pleasure excursion and 
it made me a little ashamed 
of myself. 

Through the day, the moun- 
tain scenery was varied and 
picturesque. After nightflill I 
reached Maxwell's ranch on the 
Greenhorn river. Ever since 
starting, I had anticipated here an 
agreeable and luxurious resting 
place. Maxwell had thousands 
of sheep and cattle, and his 
dwelling ( the only one within 
sixty miles) was eagerly looked 
forward to by every traveler. 
To ray sore disappointment I 
found that only the day previous 

he had removed his cattle and men to a distant ranch, leaving 
no soul here save one villainous-looking Mexican. This unpre- 
possessing host wore a tattered hat, woolen shirt, buckskin 
breeches and moccasins; and his black matted hair shaded a face 




mr RUEFUL MEXICAX HOST. 



274 AN UNPLEASANT SLEEPING COMPANION. [1859. 

wliicli would have hanged him before any intelligent jury. But 
he was the very pink of courtesy offering hospitality in bastai'd 
Spanish with unceasing genuflections of welcome — 

' Washing his hands with invisible soap, 
In imperceptible water ' — 

clearly the only soap and water with which his person was familiar. 

I tied Liliput in a ruinous out-building and gladdened his faith- 
ful heart with corn. The dwelling had a rough dirt-floor and 
was pierced with holes in lieu of doors and windows. Through 
great gaps in the roof I saw the deep blue sky and the twinkling 
stars. But a cheerful blaze glowed in the spacious fire-place, and 
mine host of the rueful countenance prepared a capital supper of 
broiled venison, biscuit, and coffee. Obsequiously declining my 
invitation to join me at the meal, and vowing that he would ne'er 
consent, he not only consented but did ample justice to his own 
cooking. 

Spreading my blankets in one corner and directing him to make 
his bed in another, I lay down with one hand ostentatiously resting 
upon the revolver under my pillow. My clothing had become 
ludicrously ragged. I had carefully concealed my watch ; and 
marvelous indeed must have been the cupidity which that ward- 
robe, steed, or equipments could excite. But I had been told again 
and again that an ignorant Mexican would kill a man any day for 
ten dollars ; and if this peon was not a cut-throat his face would 
have justified a suit against Nature for libel. Studying it drowsily 
by the flickering light of the log fire I fell asleep. 

YI. Gibbon records that during the reign of a bloody tyrant 
a young Persian nobleman was wont to say : 

' I never leave the sultan's presence without first ascertaining 
whether my head still rests upon my shoulders.' 

Waking at three o'clock I instinctively imitated his example. 
But the jugular veins still continued perfect and the Mexican slept 
soundly under his sheep skin, until aroused to cook breakfast and 
feed Liliput for a hard day's journey. 

Overwhelming me with thanks for a pecuniary acknowledg- 
ment of his liospitality, he uttered a vehement 'Adios^ Senor ;^ and 
I was on the road while the stars were yet shining. 



1859.] A HERD OF SPOTTED ANTELOPES. 275 

Upon a mountainous desert I crossed tlie imaginary line wbich 
then bounded New Mexico on the north. Later, when Colorado 
Territory was organized it took a slice from the northern border, 
and also included portions of Kansas, Nebraska, and Utah. 

Before noon I descended into the broad rich valley of the 
Arkansas. Here the stream is a hundred yards wide, shaded with 
a narrow belt of tall cottonwoods, and its banks covered with 
waving grass. The river was like an old friend. I had journeyed 
sixteen hundred miles since leaving it iit Fort Smith, eight hun- 
dred miles nearer the Mississippi, many weeks before. 

Turning out Liliput for a grassy feast, I dimnl with the con- 
ductor of a Mexican flour train for Denver, a Maine Yankee who 
for twenty years had been roaming over the world by sea and 
land. Soon after, I struck the Fontaine qui Bouille creek, and 
followed np its bank during the whole afternoon. 

Spent the night at a pleasant ranch kept by an intelligent Ameri- 
can famih^ It was homelike once more to be under a civilized 
roof and to encounter, for the first time during a journey of a 
thousand miles, women who spoke English. One of the ladies 
had been my neighbor in Kansas; but long roving had disguised 
me so effectually that for the first half hour she failed to recognize 
me. Day's travel forty-four miles. 

VII. Journej^ed up the Fontaine qui Bouille directly toward 
Pike's Peak, which, with its dark, wooded sides, and irregular 
turreted summit, towers far above all adjacent mountains. 

Plump antelopes abounded, so tame that when I stopped my 
pony a long herd of one hundred and twenty-seven in single file 
crossed the path before me, within a stone's throw. Some were 
beautifully spotted and all exquisitely graceful. 

Just before dark in the gigantic shadow of Pike's Peak, I reached 
a little sign-board labeled in bold capitals ' Colorado Avenue.' 
I had not seen a human being since morning, and the idea of a 
city in these solitudes savored of the ludicrous; but there it stood, 
unmistakable evidence of civilization and speculation. 

A mile beyond, passing around an intervening hill, I reached 
Colorado City, founded a few weeks before, and containing fifteen 
or twenty log-cabins. In front of one stood an old Kansas friend, 
who came inquiringly forward and at last penetrating my panoply 



276 



OFFERINGS TO AN INVISIBLE DEITY. 



[1859. 




FlKbT \lt\V OF COLOKAUO CITY. 



of dirt and rags gave me lieartiest greeting. Day's travel thirty- 
five miles. 

VIII. A morning visit to the curious Fontaine qui Bouille, 

(fountains which boil,) 
two miles from Colo- 
rado City, at the head 
of the creek I had fol- 
lowed up since leav- 
ing; the Arkansas. 
The three fountains, 
Imbbling up from the 
ground and not boil- 
ing with heat, are 
very strongly impreg- 
nated with soda. 
One, whose basin is 
three feet in diameter, 
seems to rise from the midst of a great rock which it has incrusted 
with soda to the thickness of several inches. A colunm of water 
nearly as large as the body of a man gushes up with groat force. 
The supplying channel must be far under ground ; for between 
this and one of the other fountains runs a fresh water creek twenty 
feet- below their level. 

The Indians regard these springs with awe and reverence. 
They believe that an angel or rather a spirit troubles tlie waters 
and causes the bubbling by breathing in them. Before going on 
war expeditions the Arapahoes formerly threw beads and knives 
into the fountain, and hung the adjacent trees with deer-skins and 
quivers as propitiatory offerings to the invisible deity. The Colo- 
radoans mixed their flour in this water without adding soda or 
saleratus, and it made the lightest and best of bread. Mingled 
with tartaric acid and lemon -juice, the water foams like champagne, 
and is more palatable than that from any artificial soda fountain. 

It is said to possess rare medicinal qualites. The railroad will 
make the springs a popular summer resort. The vicinity combines 
more objects of interest and grandeur than any other spot on the 
continent : Pike's Peak, the great South Park, the Garden of the 
Gods and the Fontaine qui Bouille. 



1859.] 



ANOTHER OLD FRIEND. 



277 



Pressing onward toward Denver, I found still another old 
Kansas friend lunching upon the prairie under the shade of his 
wagon. After he 
identified me, we 
broke bread to- 
gether and then 
fought our battles 
o'er again. 

In the afternoon 
I crossed tlie high 
divide between the 
shininsj waters of 
the Arkansas and 
those of the Platte 
— an ascent so 
gentle that with the 
exception of two 
or three short hills, 
it is hardly percept- 
ible. At night I 
came to a road-side 
fire beside an ample 
tent whose solitarv 
sleeper rubbing his 
eyes, cordially of- 
frontier virtue, and every stranger is tendered food and shelter. Afy 
host was of a hunting party, and his two companions were seeking 
their stray horses. I turned Liliput — now foot-sore from his long 
journc}- — out to graze ; and, thanks to the kindness of Colorado 
friends, who had stuffed my pockets with venison, was able to 
prepare an ample supper by the roaring fire. Then stretching 
upon the ground with saddle for a pillow, slept soundly after a 
day's journey of fifty miles. 

IX. At sunrise I was again upon the road. Soon after, from 
the summit of a hill I could see Denver distinctly, though it was 
more than twenty miles distant. A lady upon a spirited horse 
overtook me and accompanied me into the city. From visiting a 
sister at a saw-mill in the deep pineries she was returning home, a 




THE FONTAIXE QUI IJOUILLK. 



fored me lodg- 
ings; for hos- 
pitality is pre- 
eminentlv a 



278 CLIMATE AND PULMO^^AItY COMPLAINTS. [1859. 

morning ride of twentj-five miles. Ruddy cheeks and a 
symmetrical form bad rewarded her fondness for this health-inspir- 
ing exercise. 

Descending easy hills over a sand soil we reached the Platte 
valley, for miles trenched and gullied by miners, some still hard 
at work, and realizing five dollars per day to the man. 

Passing many rude shanties for the sale of whisky and tobacco, 
along the well-trodden road, soon after noon we galloped into 
Denver. Here ended my mountain journey, the most enjoyable 
trip I had ever made. It removed the last vestiges of my Fort 
Smith ilhicss. The whole desert and mountain region from the 
British Possessions to New Mexico, and westward to the Pacific, 
is one of the healthiest in the world. Rains fall only from July 
to September ; tlie air is so dry that fresh meat cut in strips in 
summer, and quarters in winter, and hung up, will cure without 
smoking or sailing, so that it may be carried to au}^ part of the 
globe. In such an air lung and throat complaints have no chance. 
I have known persons supposed to be hopelessly consumptive, and 
only able to travel lying upon feather beds in ox wagons, who 
after crossing the plains and sleeping in the open air, enjoyed for 
years a comfortable degree of health. Recent experience shows the 
folly of sending consumptive patients to the tropics. Dry regions, 
as far as possible fi'om the salt water, and an invigorating air, are 
precisely what is needed. Probably the most favorable climate on 
all our continent is the interior of California, and the next, Minne- 
sota. Nebraska, Kansas and the Indian Territory are also excellent, 
as indeed is every State between the Mississippi and the Pacific. 

Along the entire route I had now followed — in Missouri, 
Arkansas, the Indian Territory, Texas, and even New Mexico — 
occurred frequent battles or skirmishes a few years later, during 
the great rebellion. How vast was the war, which along the wide 
track between the Susquehanna and the Gulf of Mexico, swept 
from the Atlantic seaboard to the base of the Rocky mountains ! 

Dismounting in Denver I encountered my old comrade Lewis N. 
Tappan, who supplemented his cordial greeting with the remark : 

'I have met a good many rough-looking customers on the plains 
and among the mountains, but you eclipse them all, and would 
tempt any ' old clo's' man to carry you off bodily.' 



A REPORT OF JOHN BROWN, 



279 



1859.] 

I bad long been beyond tbe reach of mails and eagerly aske'^ 
the news. lie replied : 

' Old John Brown has just attempted to excite a slave insurrec- 
tion at Harper's Ferry ; 
several of bis followers 
are killed, and be is in 
jail awaiting trial. Our 
friends fear that bis mad 
movement will defeat tbe 
republican ticket in tbe 
fall elections.' 

I certainly shared in 
tbe fear. ' Heroism is very 
homely work in the 
doing,' and immortal 
deeds look prosaic and 
foolhardy to the mole- 
eyed worldly wisdom of 
to-day. 

Denver bad developed 
wonderfully during the 
four months of my 
absence. Frame and 
brick edifices were dis- 
placing mud-roofed log-cabins. Two theaters were in full blast; 
and at first glance I could recognize only two buildings. When I 
left there was no uncoined gold in circulation ; now it was the 
only currency — incontestable evidence that tbe mines were a fact. 
Upon every counter stood little scales, and whenever one made 
a purchase, whether to the amount of ten cents or a thousand 
dollars, be produced a buckskin pouch of gold dust and poured 
out the amount for weighing. 

The population was improving, for more families bad settled 
here, but gambling and dissipation were still universal. Nearly 
all liquors were 'doctored' and excited far more recklessness and 
mabgnity than pure whisky or brandy would have done. 

The waggish superintendent of the overland mail caught an 
intoxicated emigrant riding away one of his mules; but instead of 




THE AUTHOR ARRIVES IN DENTER. 



280 END OF SUMMER JOURNEYINGS. [1859. 

having him lynched, boarded the offender gratuitously for a day 
or two and turned him scot free, on the ground that the whisky 
sold in Denver would make any man steal. 

' Praise the bridge which carries you safely over.' In spite of 
Kit Carson's incredulity, Liliput had brought me three hundrec] 
miles in seven and-a-half days' travel. He reached Denver witli 
tender feet, galled back and a spot on each flank as large as my 
hand, made raw by the spur ; for his many virtues were tempered 
by the vice of laziness. Still I disposed of steed and equipments 
at a sum Avhich reduced the cost of the trip to precisely thirteen 
dollars. Liliput, placed in a ranch soon grew fat, and the next 
spring sold for a hundred and twenty-five dollars. 

On the tenth of ISTovember I left Denver by express for Leaven- 
worth, We started in warm weather, when coats were super- 
fluous in the middle of the day ; but twenty-four hours out, the 
thermometer suddenly dropped to two degrees below zero. Our 
conductor froze his face, our driver his ears, and during the night 
even mules were frozen upon the prairie. We rode until one 
o'clock, A. M,, suffering much but constantly bestirring ourselves 
to guard against the last deadly stupor. At last we were relieved 
by reaching a station, where, with as many other wayfarers as 
could be packed into the little building, w^e slept until daylight. 

The weather soon moderated, and on the sixteenth of Novem- 
ber, after having journeyed twenty-five hundred miles in stages 
and on horseback since the seventeenth of August, I once more 
reached the metroj)olis of Kansas. 



18G0.] A NIGHT WITH A SQUATTER. 281 



CHAPTER XXIV. 

In Ma)^, 1860, with my friend Thomas "\V. Knox, I returned to 
the border. First we made a pedestrian tour of two hundred 
miles through the interior of Kansas. In this initial experience 
of pioneer life, my comrade learned how truly ' the stomach is the 
great laboratory of disaffection whether in camp or capital.' The 
first evening, foot-sore and wayworn, we began to think of lodg- 
ings for the night. A neat little log-house, with well and orchard 
in front, and several improved farming implements beside it, 
allured us., 

' This settler,' said I oracularly, ' is a gentleman of taste. These 
indications, to an old traveler, give unfiiling promise of whole- 
some fore, agreeable society, and excellent accommodations. Here 
will we spend the night, and go forth on the morrow, refreshed, 
rejuvenated, and at peace with all the world.' 

The squatter, a Missourian of the Methodist persuasion, whose 
great prairie of face was fringed with a dense, untriramed forest 
of hair, received ua kindly, and ' reckoned ' he might accommo- 
date us, could we put up with his indifferent fare. Here was 
modesty, the sure precursor of good things to come. The inevi- 
table tow-headed children greeted us with their pleasant infant 
familiarities. The hostess, young and not uncomely, but of that 
unmistakably coarse fiber .which a diet of pork and hominy im- 
parts, retired to the kitchen to prepare supper. Time dragged, 
for the prairies had given us voracious appetites ; but the long 
delay suggested proportionately splendid results. Just as the 
clock struck nine we crossed our legs under the festive cotton- 
wood. 

Alas, for human hopes ! The coffee was like a pool of j-ellow 



282 KILLED IN THE DARKNESS. [1860. 

soap suds. The conglomerate substance by courtesy called butter 
was rank and smelled to heaven. The ham was strong enough 
to perform the labors of Hercules. The English language affords 
no vituperative epithet which can do justice to the corn bread. 
Despairingly, we called for sweet milk. Doubtless it liad been 
sweet at some previous stage, but the period was far remote. Not 
a dish was palatable; the trail of the serpent was over them all. 

In utter disappointment we left the table, sat for a while in 
ominous silence, and went to bed, a morose and melancholy pair. 
But our sufferings had only begun. The couch was in the posses- 
sion of insectile inhabitants, who resented our invasion of their 
premises, in the most aggressive and bloodthirsty manner. The 
reader shall be spared the bristling terrors of that memorable 
night. It combined the horrors of a prize-fight with being 
buried alive. 

In the morning we assisted at the farce of breakfost, disbursed 
nine shillings for what by a hideous satire was called our ' enter- 
tainment,' and departed with unspoken maledictions upon our 
host. Of all the Kansas frauds which had come within my knowl- 
edge, he was the most glaring and aggravated. 

Fifteen miles bej^ond, we dined at Franklin, where the tavern 
walls still contained scores of bullets received during its siege and 
captui'e ill 1856. A friend, one of the attacking Free State men, 
while lying in the grass and firing his rifle spoke to a comrade 
immediately beside him. There was no answer. Putting out his 
hand in the darkness it struck a motioidess head, the hair dripping 
with warm blood. His companion lying within two feet had ut- 
tered no sound when he received the death-wound, which was 
ghasth' and gaping, for the spiral motion of the modern rifle bullet 
makes its aperture three times as large as the ball itself 

Near Grasshopper Falls one fine fiirm of six hundred acres and 
another of nine hundred showed us that the wilderness was already 
being subdued. At Holton we stopped to chat with an old pro- 
slavery settler whose cheek was enormously distended from a rifle 
shot, the result of an attempt by himself and several companions 
to break up a republican convention. 

At the lonely log-cabin where we spent the night, in the winter 
of 1857-8, old John Brown with twelve fugitive slaves whom he 



I860.] REMINISCENCES OF OLD JOHN BROWN. 



283 



was conducting to Canada had waited four days for the creek to 
fall. Stephens and Whipple were his only white companions. 
Six men from Lecompton came prowling suspiciously about, when 
Stephens went out and asked : 




• PORTRAIT OF JOHN UROWN. 

'What are you looking for?' 

* Six fugitive slaves.' 

' Well gentlemen we have not got your negroes, but we have 
twelve others up at the house. Come and see them.' 

This invitation was accompanied by the click of his cocking 
rifle. The Lecomptonites were armed to the teeth, but five wheeled 
their horses and fled while the sixth at whom the rifle was pointed 
tremblingly remained. Stephens made him dismount, give up his 
arms and follow him to the dwelling;: 



284 YANKEES, MISSOURIANS AND 'CRICKS.' [1860. 

*Mr. Brown, this man came here hunting negroes; do what you 
please with him.' 

After searching him for concealed weapons Brown took a rope 
from his pocket, tied the prisoner's hands and feet, and then re- 
quested him to take a seat. He kept him confined four days 
reasoning with him about slavery and the wickedness of negro 
hunting. When set at liberty the discomfited foe seemed thor- 
oughly converted, and manifested genuine regard for the wonder- 
ful old man. 

Here came the United States marshal with a posse of thirty, to 
arrest Brown's party. The three dauntless pilots waited at the 
windows with leveled rifles to receive them, and Stephens called 
out cheerfullj^ : 

' Come on gentlemen ; lue are ready whenever you are.' 

Their proverbial daring was terrible as an army with banners. 
The negro huntei's were fully persuaded that dwellings, out-build- 
ings, and hay lofts swarmed with fighting men. So they left 
without firing a gun ; and when the creek fell the negroes con- 
tinued on unmolested toward the North Star. All which our host 
related by his evening fireside. At breakfast he devoutly asked 
a blessing upon the meal, and a few minutes later coolly re- 
marked : 

'I should not be sorry to see the troubles break out ngain. I 
know of a few scoundrels who have harrassed Free State men 
beyond all endurance, and who ought to be killed. But of course 
we don't want to shoot them unless they give us due provoca 
tion.' 

When we parted he said : 

' Keep this road north for two miles, and then take the one 
leading eastward.' 

This alone would have revealed the Yankee. Missourians 
never gave the point of compass but only directed the traveler to 
' Follow up the crick for two miles and then cross over to the next 
crick,' In the belts of timber along streams they invariably 
settled, while northerners made their homes upon high open 
prairie. The ' crick' lands were prolific of fever-and-ague and 
democratic voters. 

The Missourians were accustomed to letting their swine run at 



I860.] 



A LETTER FROM JOIIX BROWN. 



285 



^^ 



^^ 



l> 






M 



Ik 







^ \ ?r *> 





t^^?^^ 






v 



19 



286 ONE OF JOHN brown's FOLLOWERS. [1860. 

large. In Brown county we found one intensely disgusted, 
because tlie voters of his township had decided that the animals 
must be shut up to save feucing-in the grain and potatoes. lie 
compLdned : 

' I don't mind so much getting along without negroes; but next 
year I will move out of this d — d Yankee neighborhood where 
a man is compelled to shut up his hogs.' 

The death of John Brown on a Virginia gibbet had alreadj'- 
canonized him. Almost ever}' Free State settler gave some 
reminiscences of the stanch old martyr. Among his enthusiastic 
followers was young Kagi, very modest and quiet, a correspondent 
of the New York Evening Post. He had criticised a United States 
district judge of Buchanan's appointment. Soon after, when he 
chanced to enter the temple of justice, the court adjourned, and 
several ofi&cial desperadoes attacked him with revolvers. Like 
most quiet men, when excited he proved an ugly customer. He 
answered their shots with great promptness, giving the judge a 
wound so serious that it made him helpless for months. When 
his revolver barrels were emptied, Kagi jumped out of a window 
and escaped unharmed. lie finally fell pierced by scores of 
bullets, on the bridge at Harper's Ferry. 

Nominally, slavery still existed. In Atchison county I found 
some old southern neighbors greatly exercised over the loss of 
their chattels. One African, up to the night of his flight, 
expressed many fears that the Abolitionists might catch and kill 
him! The incredible depravity of another, a favorite house-maid 
was thus set forth by her owner : 

'Why the ungrateful hussy! Only the week before she ran 
awa}^ I offbred her herself for twelve hundred dollars, with the 
privilege of paying by installments too!' 

'Mary Ann,' added the really kind-hearted mistress, 'was 
raised like one of the family. I took care of her when she was a 
baby, and always dressed and treated her well. Many and many 
a time she attended me when I was sick, lifting and moving me 
as though I was a child. She was a good girl, and I never 
counted the money before giving her my purse to buy any thing. 
Poor thing! I reckon she has hard masters now. Perhaps they 
have dashed her brains out already. I know she would not have 



I860.] AN EXTINGUISHING RETORT. 287 

left me of her own accord; the Abolitionists must have stolen 
her.' 

In Atchison county, the republican party had nominated John 
J. Ingalls, a young, gentleman from Massachusetts, for the 
Wyandotte constitutional convention. At a democratic meeting 
John W. Stringfellow, forgetful that Border Ruffian days were 
over, spoke of the Yankee with traditional contempt : 

Who knew any thing about this 3^oung man ? IIow old was 
he? How long had he lived in the Territory? 

The next evening, with Stringfellow sitting prominently beside 
him, Ingalls repaid the debt with usurious interest. He had been 
charged with two heinous crimes : short residence in Kansas, and 
personal obscurity. He could not deny the first, but only urged 
that it was an offense of which most citizens had once been guilty, 
and one which time usually cured. He added : 

' Tiie allegation of obscurity is 3^et more aggravated and fearful. 
Mr. President, most men are obscure once in a lifetime. Some 
always remain in that obscurit}-. Others emerge from it to an 
infamous notorietij compared with which obscurity were the 
kindest gift that charity could bestow!' 

This extinguishing retort elicited roars of applause, and shouts 
of 'Stringfellow,' 'Stringfellow,' which finally drove him dis^ 
comfited from the stage. Ingalls was triumphantly elected. . 

On the nineteenth of May, Knox and myself left Atchison in 
the two-horse wagon of a pioneer, who had contracted to board us 
on the way and deliver us in Denver for forty dollars each. 
The swift mail coacli was the ai'istocratic mode; the horse wagon 
the respectable; and the ox- wagon, known as the 'ox telegraph' or 
'prairie-schooner,' the plebian. Oxen traveled about fifteen miles 
per day ; horses twenty to thirty ; footmen twentj^-five. 

As we passed through Kennekuck an emigrant, who had left 
Atchison without satisfying his creditors, suddenly discovered the 
sheriff at his heels. Putting spurs to his horse he dashed off at a 
swift run while the officer pursued. The fugitive dropped over- 
coat and blanket, but Gilpin-like did not stop for trifles. At last, 
barely one length ahead, his panting horse crossed the line into 
the next county. Here, fearless of the sheriff, he turned around, 
begged that officer to accejDt his lost blanket as a faint token of 



288 



ALONG THE EMIGRANT ROAD. 



[1860. 



regard, and present his love to inquiring friends at home ! Scat- 
tered among the honest folk migrating to the mountains were 
adventurers like those facetious scoundrels in the convict colony 
at New South Wales, who proclaimed themselves : 

' True patriots all ; for be it understood, 
We left our country for our country's good I' 

At Ash Point one of the little groceries springing up like 
mushrooms bore the sign: 'Butte, Reggs, Flower and Mele.' 
There were long droves of cattle for California whose drivers ex- 
pected to be six 
months on the wav, 
and thousands of 
weary oxen coming 
in from Salt Lake 
whose thinly clad 
bones made the buz-, 
zards look wistfully. 
Ill Marshall county 
at the crossing of thb 
Big Blue, the clear- 
est stream in Kansas, 
we passed Marj-s- 
vil'c founded by Colonel Frank Marshall, a Border Ruffian, of some 
notoriety. He bad a passion for the name of Mary, and called the 
embryo city in honor of his wife. It had fifty houses and was 
f tmed for whisky and shooting affrays. The grand jury had in- 
dicted a dozen inhabitants for horse racing, and the criminals were 
in great glee because the district judge by whom they must be 
tried had also been a judge at the race in question ! 

Beyond Fort Kearne}'' a sudden night-storm blew down our 
Sibley tent. To replace it was impossible; no man could stand 
against the bleak desert wind. So we shivered through the long 
hours till daylight found us half covered with sand, which had 
permeated all our clothing. At midnight a drove of stampeding 
cattle came rushing toward us. Frightened by the heap of canvas 
they divided and ran by without trampling upon us. 

We often encamped with old friends, and beguiled the evening 




'DO THEY MISa JfE AT HOME?' 



I860.] HUMORS OF PLAINS TRAVEL, 289 

hours with reading or whist or the music of violin and flute. By 
day the road was lively. Many emigrant women rode saddle 
horses, though most were in ox-wagons. All seemed to enjoy the 
trip, though each invariably apologized for her untid}' looks. We 
saw one bloomer who weighed two hundred and fifty pounds 
driving oxen while her husband slept soundlj- in their wagon. 
Another leviathan from New Hampshire would have satisfied the 
great Julius; for he weighed three hundred and fifty, he was fat, 
he was sleek-headed and he slept o' nights. 

There were many fresh graves, and upon one secluded island 
of the Platte were found the bloody remains of a little girl with 
broken skull. It was difl&cult to surmise the motive for the mur- 
der of the poor child. 

One wagon drawn by six cows bore the charcoal label : ' Family 
Express; Milk for Sale.' Many displayed the sign: 'Old 
Bourbon "Whisky sold hereT Among other quaint inscrip- 
tion were: — 

' I am off for the Peak ; are you ?' 

* Good bye friends ; I am bound to try the Peak.' 

' The eleventh comraandraent ; Mind your own business.' 

' Ho for CaHtbrnia.' 

' Oregon or death !' 

We cooked our own meals of coffee, biscuit and pork, upon 
the open prairie with buifalo chips for fuel. In our evening camp 
an ex-clergyman might be seen devoting himself to the supper, a 
Boston steel engraver and an old California miner greasing the 
wagon, while a Missouri railway contractor and an Ohio lawyer 
watched the grazing mules. 

At last we felt the invigorating breath of the pines, and saw the 
shining crests of the Mother Mountains. On the tenth of June, 
twenty- three da^'s out, we reached Denver. Here Knox and my- 
self spent the summer as correspondents, also editing the Golden 
City Weekly Mountaineer^ by way of recreation. 

Denver was uncomfortably crowded ; so we built a little frame 
house in the midst of a prairie-dog-town, commanding a superb 
view of the mountain scenery, probably more grand than that 
looked upon from any other town in the world. 

Colorado Territory was not yet organized. The whole gold 



290 OUK PIONEERS AND SELF GOVERNMENT. [1860. 

region, nominally within tlie limits of Kansas, but separated from 
all her farming population by the vast desert, contained no law, 
no courts, no authorities. There had been two or three abortive 
constitutional conventions, and delegates sent to Washington in 
the vain attempt to secure a Territorial organization. One of 
these would-be Congressmen was a brilliant example of the ver- 
nacular of his native Kentucky. In an earnest public discussion 
he thus appealed to his auditors : 

' Why gentlemen, are you awar whar you are ?' 

Many wished the nascent State named Pike's Peak — quite as 
convenient an appellation as Khode Island. But in due time it 
was called Colorado, after the great river thus named by Spanish 
explorers from the red earth along its banks. 

Our pioneers enforce order and the right of the majority to rule, 
instinctively — as water runs down hill. Lord Brougham said that 
all the bloodshed and rebellions of Great Britain, had been 
simply to establish the principle that every question of life, 
liberty or property must be submitted to twelve unbiased men. 
Our own fi'ontiers recognize this right. Establish a thousand 
American settlers in the Himalayas, and in one month they would 
have all needful laws in operation, with life and property quite as 
well protected as in the city of New York. 

The Denver people were a law unto themselves. Whenever a 
grave crime had been committed, an informal court was organized, 
some leading citizen placed upon the bench, and a jury made up 
of substantial merchants and mechanics. The prisoner was tried, 
allowed counsel, and if guilty sentenced to be hanged within one 
or two days. 

These courts were as alert as the pioneer circuit judge in the 
early days of Iowa. His honor, accompanied by sheriff and clerk, 
meeting a horse-thief on a public road, held his court upon the 
spot, tried and convicted the criminal, and sent him to the peni- 
tentiary for five years. 

The week after our arrival, a murderer was thus condemed and 
executed. A few days later, another was tried. The jury found 
him guilty. The judge asked the prisoner if he had any reason 
to offer why sentence of death should not be passed upon him. 
He replied : 



I860.] 



AN ILLUSTRATION OF LYNCH LAW. 



291 



' I have nothing to say.' 

Then the judge submitted the question to the four or five 
hundred spectators : 

'Gentlemen, you who believe this verdict is just will say Aye.' 

The answer was an overwhelming roar of affirmatives. 

' Contrary-minded will say No.' 

One solitary negative came up from the crowd. With immov- 
able serenity, the prisoner heard the question of his life or death 
submitted to the assembly, like a resolution or a point of order. 
He was sentenced to die on the following morning; and remanded 
to the custody of the volunteer officers. But that night he eluded 
the guards and decamped, stealing a wagon and a pair of mules to 
facilitate his traveling. He was never cauglit; but the indignant 
people came very near hanging the officers on bare suspicion that 
they connived at his escape. 




AX AIIMKD XEUTRALITT. 



In June an Arapahoe war party went out for wool and came 
back shorn. After destrovinsr a defenseless villao-e of Ute women 
and children, they were quietly smoking their pipes in camp, when 



292 Gordon's capture, trial and death. [1860. 

Ute warriors swooped down upon tliem, killed six and wounded 
thirty more. In New Mexico, twenty-one Arapahoes started in 
pursuit of the same ugly enemies. While they were supping in 
camp the Utes suddenly closed in upon them, killing and scalping 
every one. Twp weeks later a party of whites discovered the 
ghastly corpses with morsels of meat still between their lips. 

A desperado named James Gordon, killed a harmless German 
and then fled eastward. He took refuge in Fort Lupton, a ranch a 
few miles north of Denver. A party of pursuers had surrounded 
the fort, when Gordon rode out upon a fleet horse and dashed 
away. A shower of bullets whizzed about him, but he made good 
his escape. Officers appointed by a meeting of citizens, tracked 
the murderer seventeen hundred miles, and captured him in 
southern Kansas near the Indian Territory. They took him tQ 
Leavenworth where the United States district court at once set 
him at liberty, on a writ of habeas corpus. The large German 
population of Leavenworth gathered in a determined mob, and 
three times had a rope around Gordon's neck. But his pursuers 
and the Leavenworth officers resisted the bloodthirsty assailants. 
Every shred of clothing was torn from the poor wretch, and he 
begged the guards to give him up or kill him at once. At last, 
after an express agreement that he should be returned to the 
mountains for trial, the mob dispersed. Middaugh, the leading 
officer from Denver took him back to that city in irons. 

Gordon was only twenty-three, and when sober, intelligent and 
well-behaved. But while intoxicated he had already killed three 
or four men. He had been specially kind to his aged father and 
mother. He was tried and convicted in a citizens' court ; guarded 
for a week by armed sentinels against rescue from his friends, and 
finally executed. No court in the world could have acted with 
more fairness and firmness. All the expenses of the three-thou- 
sand-mile pursuit were defrayed by voluntary contributions. 

As in all new mining regions there was an irrepressible conflict 
between the industrious sterling citizens, and the desperadoes, 
strengthened by their sympathizers of wealth and position, who 
formed the connecting link between villainy and respectability. 
The Bochj Mountain News offended the scoundrels by some com- 
ments upon a wanton murder. While the editor, William M. 



I860.] WONDERFUL TENACITY OF LIFE. 293 

Byers, sat in his office conversing witli three pacific strangers 
from the East, four gamblers rushed in with cocked revolvers and 
abusive epithets, dragged Byers to a drinking saloon where, only 
through the strategy of a friend, was he saved from death. After 
his escape, the enraged gamblers rode back to the Neius office and 
fired several bullets into it. 

The establishment was always in a state of armed neutrality. 
Printers and editors were moving arsenals, with revolvers at 
their belts and shot-guns standing beside their cases and desks. 
The typos returned the fire, killing one of the assailants. By 
this time half a dozen armed citizens reached the scene and chased 
the flying gamblers through the streets. One of the latter named 
Steele, galloping along Blake street, met Thomas W. Pollock 
whose horse was also upon a full run. Neither checked his speed. 
Both fired at the same instant. Pollock was unhurt; Steele fell 
dead with a charge of buckshot in his brain. Another of the 
gamblers was captured and barely escaped hanging. By a close 
vote in a popular assembly, he was permitted to leave the country. 

The pure air of plains and mountains gives the system un- 
exampled power of resistance to disease and wounds. In July, 
United States troops at Bent's trading-post, two hundred miles 
southeast of Denver, captured a number of Kiowa Indians. 
Afterward ordered eastward, they left the prisoners in Bent's 
charge, but the wily savages soon escaped. Then Bent dispatched 
Mark Ralfe, a young Frenchman, down the Arkansas to inform 
the commanding officer. After Ralfe had ridden forty miles, the 
Kiowas fell upon him, shooting him in three places, and stabbing 
him in four. Believing him dead, they took his scalp with a 
dull knife, leaving no hair whatever except a little lock above each 
ear. After they had gone he recovered consciousness, and with 
no nourishment except water, walked back to the fort. In a few 
months he was well again. 

In Colorado City, Pat Devlin crowned his career ( see page 126,) 
by an affray in which he received six heavy slugs in vital organs, 
yet survived almost three weeks. 

How delicate yet marvelous the human organism, which a rap 
Upon the temple or a prick from a needle may destroy, and which 
yet survives wounds that would kill a buffiilo or a grizzly bear ! 



294 A SUMMER DAY IN DENYEli. [ISGO. 



CHAPTER XXV. 

Novel phases of life were exhibited in Denver during tliis sec- 
ond summer of its settlement. Let reader play the visitor and 
author the cicerone. 

Weeks ago you left the locomotive on the Missouri. The 
weary journey since has taught you how the railway condenses life. 
After starting by horse-power, two hundred miles out you left the 
last forming settlement. Another hundred miles, and j^ou struck 
the Platte, following it to a point eighty miles from Denver, where 
you took the great 'cut-off' across the barren, alkaline desert — the 
unkindest cut-olf of all. You have felt the wild pleasure of buf- 
falo hunting, shaken a rattlesnake from your blanket at night, 
dived into the occult mysteries of cooking, to bring forth biscuits 
and flapjacks, frolicked among prairie dogs, hob-nobbed with In- 
dians, been drenched by rain-storms, and hungered and thirsted 
after the newspapers of civilization. 

After six hundred miles of naked prairie and monotonous des- 
ert, the resinous odor of the pine greeted your nostiils and 
the distant mountains towered grandly before your charmed 
and astonished eyes. Last night you again saw the shining 
Platte, and this morning ^-ou rose upon the outskirts of Den« 
ver before the sun. But your journey was not yet ended ; for 
this city with its additions embraces five thousand acres of 
building lots. Blake street is as lively as Broadway. But Saint 
Charles street, with no devices except the surveyors' stakes and 
no inhabitants save prairie dogs, is as desolate and uninviting as 
the Sahara. 

The first city you struck was a city of the dead. Denver is but 
two years old, yet graves are thick in its new cemetery on the 



I860.] 



BEST HOUSE IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD, 



295 



bare hill ; and of their inmates a large majority met violent deaths. 
You descended a gentle slojje among a few log-cabins and scattered 
board houses; and now you stand upon our threshold, looking as 
if you had not loved the world nor the world you — ragged but 
rejoicing, dilapidated but not downcast. Half an hour for ablu- 
tions and toilet. 

In New York, our one-story house, fourteen feet by twenty 
with eight feet of shed for a kitchen, would be an indifferent 




OUR HOUSE IN DENVER. 



Stable ; here it is a palace. 
"Walls of rough upright 
boards, with cracks bat- 
tened to keep out rain 
and dust; chief external features: a square, clapboarded front, 
three doors, three windows, and a stove-pipe protruding from the 
kitchen-roof. It cost three hundred dollars, and has ' all the mod- 
ern improvements ' of this longitude — kitchen and cellar. "We 
occupy a better house than any of our neiglibors, and what more 
could human nature ask? The interior boasts neither partition, 
ceiling nor plastering. Here is a decrepit desk which once did 
dutv in a Cincinnati editorial room and afterward in a Kansas 
cottage. The one shelf contains the only two ' Unabridged ' die- 



296 A BREAKFAST PARTY OF ROVERS. [1860. 

tionaries in the gold region, and a dozen -works of travel. A bed 
on the floor with snowy sheets, two chairs, three stools, one bench, 
one table, two revolvers, one musket, one bowie-knife and three or 
four trunks and carpet sacks, make up the inventory of household 
goods. 

During our chat the Ethiopian Sam, caterer, steward and facto- 
tum, announces breakfost. Two years ago Sam was a barber in 
Lecompton. When Samuel Medarj-^, eighth Kansas governor with- 
in three years, had taken his initial shave, he proposed to pay by 
the month. Sam's witty answer went on a news]3aper tour from 
Maine to Oregon : 

' If you please, mass'r, I prefer to have you pay b}^ de shave ; 
dese new gub'ners goes away so mighty sudden !' 

He is still the slave of Judge Elmore of Kansas. For the last 
three years he has hired his time at thirty dollars per month ; and 
now the judge has permitted him to come to Pike's Peak, upon his 
agreement to pay twelve hundred dollars for himself as soon as he 
can accumulate the money. He reads fluently and writes a little ; 
concocts miraculous sherry cobblers, and is a man of brains. In 
that cabin a hundred yards away are templed his household gods. 
His wife, now standing in the door, was formerly a slave of the 
Eev. ' Tom Johnson,' of the Kansas Shawnee Mission ; but from 
her earnings as a laundress saved and paid six hundred dollars in 
hard cash for her freedom. In her arms you see a little image of 
God cut in ebony, with astonishing white eyes, which all the mat- 
rons hereabout declare the ' cunningest ' of babies. 

Our breakfast party is composed of half a dozen rovers who, 
kept at home, would have famished for travel and excitement — 
young men to whom ' magnificent distances appear beautiful and 
the possibilities of infinite for-off-ness delicious.' One used to 
keep a hotel in Sacramento; another, a smooth-fjiced boy, has 
made two voyages up the Mediterranean ; the third has done busi- 
ness in Boston, New York, Australia, California, Missouri and 
Kansas ; the fourth, typo and editor, has M'orked upon newspapers 
in Chicago, California, Australia, New Zealand, and Peru; the 
fifth was recently principal of a New Hampshire academy ; and 
the sixth, for ten years a journalistic shuttlecock, has taken notes 
among eastern newspaper offices, Kansas wars, Nebraska bufifaloes, 



I860.] KEWSPAPERS, CnURCnES, HOTELS, STOKES. 297 

Missoui'i iron and lead mines, Arkansas fevers, Choctaw cotton 
plantations, Texas northers, Mexican fandangoes, and liocky 
Mountain Indians. 

Here is the morning newspaper, damp from the press, in season 
for our ultimate cups of coii'ce. It is about one-third as large as 
the Tribune^ delivered by the carrier at fifty cents per week, and 
edited by an Englishman who cherishes deep-seated malignity 
against the letter ' h,' and fears neither God, man nor Lindley 
Murray. ^Yith only four thousand people, Denver has three daily 
newspapers. 

Here comes the milk-man, in whose fluid the aqueous largely 
preponderates over the lacteal ; and he is closely followed by the 
ice-man, and the vender of vegetables. After all we are not so 
far out of the world ; it is only five hundred miles to the nearest 
telegraph station. 

Now we will stroll down and see the lions. Buckling on our 
revolvers ? Most certainly. It may shock you who have always 
lived in a state of utter civilization, but no journalist who means 
to tell the truth is wise to step into these streets without some 
display of fire-arms, unless partial to having his nose pulled or 
being made a target. 

Here is rising a frame Catholic church. Who can travel beyond 
the far-reaching arms of the Roman power, even in the decadence? 
A walk of a third of a mile, past lumber yards and scattered 
nebulous frames daily developing into neat cottages, brings us 
to Larimer street. One square to the right is the Broad well 
House, a large wooden structure, where you can obtain tolerable 
accommodations at Astor House prices. To the left a labyrinth of 
buildings including the new brick church, trading houses and dens 
of vice — temples to God, Mammon and Satan, side by side. 

Here is the City Drug-store of brick, which would look well in 
St Louis or Chicago; within, you may buy the latest newspapers, 
ten days old, for twenty cents. Ten thousand eastern journals 
arrive in Denver weekly. 

Looking down F street for five blocks we see the shining Platte, 
its green banks sprinkled with immigrant tents and Indian lodges. 
Beyond rise the abrupt many-colored mountains. Handsome 
blocks are everywhere springing up, interspersed with smaller 



298 



MINT, EXPRESS-OFFICE, AND COACH, 



[1860. 



wooden buildings and log-cabins, relics of the remote antiquity 
of a twelvemonth ago. Bricks are the cheapest material, costing 
only six dollara per thousand, while lumber commands five dollars 
per hundred. A corner lot, twenty-live feet by one hundred, has 
just sold for twelve hundred dollars. 

We stroll down G street past the banking-bouse , assay office 
and mint of Clark, Gruber and Company.* Within one sees 
pouches and bags of shining dust, and glittering nuggets. The 
Hrrn issue their own gold coins of two and-a-half, five, ten and 
twenty dollars. They form the chief currency of the town, though 
much crude dust circulates in the mountains. 

Below the corner of Blake street, is the huge frame two-story ex- 
press office, 
with low. 
Ion?, 




Ol 



one- 



story wing, 
running up 
nearly one 
square upon 
G. In it ai'c 
the two win- 
dows of the 
express pos- 
tal depart- 
ment, and 
fioni them 
stretches a 
lono- file of 
anxious in- 
quirers each patiently awaiting his turn 
to be served with letters. Near b}^ is 
the office of Hinckley's express which 
forwards mail matter from Denver to 
twenty thousand miners in the mountains. 
On tbe corner, a hundred people are gazing at the Concord coach 
of the Central Overland and Pike's Peak Express Company, about 



WAITING FOR LETTERS. 



* Since converted into the United St.ates Branch Mint. 



I860.] CUKIOUS CHARACTERS FROM EVERYWHERE. 299 

to start for the Missiouri river. (Tri-weekly ; six hundred and 
fifty -two miles ; seventy-five dollars, exclusive of board ; six days.) 
Every seat is filled, and ever}'' passenger known or vouched for, 
as this is the one day of the week upon which an express messenger 
is on board with forty or fifty thousand dollars in gold dust. 

A motley crowd waits to witness the departure. Here is a well- 
formed elderly man, with a devil-may-care expression, but a face 
full of character and of wonderful perceptive faculties ; long black 
hair, complexion like a Mexican, and ej^es like an Indian. It is 
James P. Beckwourth the half-breed, so long a chief among the 
Crow tribe, and the most famous Indian fighter of this generation. 
His body is scarred from wounds received 

' In worst extremes, and on the perilous edge 
Of battle, when it raged.' 

But he is the very pink of courtesy, and specially devoted to 
a comely j^oung wife whom he invariably dignifies with the title 
of 'Lady Beckwourth.' 

That symmetrical dark man of thirt}?-, a swarthy Adonis of the 
plains, has been a Kansas Border Rufiian, a Nicaraguan fillibuster, 
a prisoner among the Mexicans, wearing a chain and working upon 
roads for more than a year, a surveyor on the Panama railroad, 
and a wanderer through the world at larsce. 

Here is the sanguine owner of a new quartz mill in the moun- 
tains, which he is persuaded will make him a millionaire. His 
interlocutor has just sold liis quartz mill for half its cost, and is 
returning to the States declaring the gold region a humbug. 

When I first met that elderly gentleman, he was a wealthy 
Pennsjdvania banker, in broadcloth and fine linen, who had 
narrowly escaped being made governor of the Keystone State. 
When I next saw him he was arrayed in buckskin and corduroys, 
in a Pike's Peak cabin, cooking flapjacks for his own breakfast. 
He is now a candidate for Congress, 

The tall thin-faced person with mutton-chop whiskers is the 
famous ' wheelbarrow man,' who trundled his entire outfit across 
the plains bringing just ten cents in his pocket. Now be also is 
an aspirant for Congressional honors. 

Theji th^e are broken down eastern merchants again f;\cin(? life 



800 



A STROLL DOWN BLAKE STREET. 



[1860. 



manfully, mechanics, speculators, loafers, blanketed Arapahoes 
and repulsive squaws each with a coal-eyed papoose peeping over 
her shoulder, and three or four naked young Ked-skins at her heels. 

The passengers receive the ultimate hand-shakings and final 
valedictions ; the coach rolls away on its long journey. 

Now we walk down Blake street. A busy scene, a mingled 
maze of various life. Liquor stores and saloons at almost every 




i:a)IAX VILLAGE 3X ItEXVtIl, IN ISGO. 

door. In the groceries, rich yellow pumpkins, potatoes, beets; 
turnips, cucumbers, and melons. Here you see a beet weighing 
thirteen pounds, a turnip weighing fourteen, and a cabbage twent}'- 
three. Strangers offer 3'ou investments in mining-claims and 
building lots ; there is speculation in those eyes which they do 
glare with. 

A few yards from this busy street, you may visit the village of 
the Arapahoes, where barbarism thus far maintains its ground 
against the advance of (nominal) civilization. But ere long it 
must be crowded out. In general the Arapahoes are poorer, 



I860.] AN EDITOR AND A COUNT. SOI 

more filthy, more wretched than most other tribes of the plains; 
but when prepared for the war-path the braves are sometimes pic- 
turesque ; and the squaws are at least rich in the number of their 
children playing about the lodges. 

In Denver Hall, where the gamblers are busy, that tall Italian 
in solemn black, smoking a huge meerschaum, claims to be a 
count. He formerly resided on the upper Mississippi, which he 
left to the great bereavement of his creditors. He is now a specu- 
lator; last year he was a barber, and his wife a laundress. One 
morning he entered the room of the editor of the Tribune^ in 
this very building, with a basket upon his arm. 

Count. — I have brought your washing home, Mr, G — ; ten 
pieces. 

Editor (looking up abstractedly from a half-written letter.) — 
Yes. How much will it be ? 

Count. — Two dollars and a half sir. 

Editor (with slightly-elevated eyebrows.) — And you shaved 
me 3'esterday beside. How much will that be? 

Count. — One dollar sir. 

Editor (with deliberation and solemnity.) — Is that all I owe 
you? 

Count (cheerfullj^) — Yes sir. 

"With an air of relief the bill was paid; and the count departed 
gaily, while the editor dryly observed that he would hardly be 
compelled to leave tliis countrj'- surreptitiousl}'-, from iuabilitj- to 
pay his creditors. 

Once more in the street, you notice that knot of idlers in front 
of the saloon, drawn thither by a drunken brawl. One belligerent 
produces a weapon. How suddenly half the lookers-on disappear 
around the corner, while the remaining half instantly draw their 
revolvers! The disturbance, is quelled without bloodshed ; but 
you feel like the epigrammatic sailor who had promised to describe 
manners and customs wherever he traveled. After being ship- 
wrecked in Patagonia, he reported thus: 'The people here have 
no manners, and their customs are disgusting.' 

Still there is a pure, pleasant, social life for those who know 
where to find it. On the street you observe many ladies dressed 
tastefully and even elegantly. 

20 



302 A GRAND MOUNTAIN PANORAMA. [1860. 

The stages have come in from the mountains, crowded with 
dusty passengers, and bringing the express messengers with tlieir 
packages of letters and gold dust for the States, The shadows 
begin to lengthen, and we stroll homeward. 

Tea over, we recline upon the greensward before our door. 
Prairie squirrels lo(jk up inquiringly, as they play at our very feet, 
and blackbirds walk about in confident security, with grateful 
memories of daily crumbs from our table. 

. But look up, beyond the city, the tufts of trees and the green 
prairie I Eighty miles to the south. Pike's Peak, like an old 
castle, 'majestic, though in ruin,' lies dim and dreamy again.st the 
sky. Seventy miles to the north stands Long's Peak, distinct, 
rugged and corrugated, its feet wreathed in })ine, and its head 
crested with snow. A dark, irregular, variegated wall, at the 
verge of the sensible horizon, sweeps grandly between ; and beyond, 
on either end, merges into the debatable ground between earth 
and sky. 

It reveals ever}^ hue, from the dark, rich purple of the nearest 
hills, to the unsullied white of the Snowy Range; every form, from 
die long, flat summit of Table Mountain, to that perfect cone, wait- 
ing to iiiqjale the dying sun. Gaze on it daily for months and 
you shall never find tlie same picture, but always an endless va- 
riety, a perpetual delight. 

Here, at the door of our rude cabin, Nature spreads before us such 
a panorama as never feasted the eye of monarch in his palace. Last 
night that furthest mountain was arrayed in a fiery glory too daz- 
zling to look upon. Now it is robed in the pale, uneaitlily light 
of another world. Docs it seem that you could ever reach it by 
mortal means, or clothed in mortal body? You can only think 
of the Celestial City, as it burst upon the vision of the pilgrim 
Christian ; or those Sabbath evening pictures of heaven opening 
to earth, received in childhood at your mother's knee. 

The sun goes down, but the cold air assails you in vain. Still 
you lie upon the sward in silence, that ' perfectest herald of jo}-,' 
until the last fold of Night's curtain has follen and shut out the 
miracle. How the glories of painter and poet, earthly ambitions, 
human life itself, dwarf before it! In wonder, humility and 
thankfulness you remember the work of the Great Artist. 



I 



I860.] LITTLE KAVEX LOSES A TKEASURE. 303 



CHAPTER XXVI. 

In September the Government commissioner held a conference 
with the Arapahoes, Cheyennes, and Comanches at Bent's Fort. 
The leading chiefs were ' Little Eaven,' ' Storm,' ' Big Mouth,' 
'Left Hand,' 'White Antelope,' 'Black Kettle,' 'Old Woman,' 
' Black Bird,' and ' Strong Arm.' In studying Indian names and 
customs one is constantly reminded of the striking resemblance 
between all. savage nations, ancient and modern, in their nomen- 
clature, mode of subsistence, and utensils of peace and war. The 
Phenicians who first visited Great Britain found the islanders 
staining their faces and bodies with colored earths and juices of 
plants, wearing no clotliing but skins, living in huts of straw and 
mud, subsisting upon their cattle, planting no corn, doing no 
manual labor, and each tribe commanded by its own chief. 

The commissioner distributed medal likenesses of Buchanan 
then occupying the presidential chair, and of Douglas and Lincoln 
rival candidates for it. The warriors received them with infinite 
pride. Little Raven having lost his Buchanan offered ten horses 
for the recovery of the priceless treasure ! 

The Arapahoes illustrated their civilization by bringing in a 
Pawnee scalp and holding a war dance over it through the whole 
night. The trophy was nearly destitute of hair, and therefore of 
comparatively little worth ; all -tribes holding it a mark of cow- 
ardice to shave the head, leaving no scalp-lock for an enemy. 

After receiving blankets, shirts, trousers, knives, camp-kettles, 
tobacco and provisions, the Indians, grotesquely painted, and 
*> decked with quills, buffalo heads, bear claws, and elk teeth, grati- 
fied the whites with another war dance, accompanied by the usual 
demoniac yells, whoops and dervish-like contortions. 



804: A DENTIST PRACTICES STRATEGT. [1860, 

In September two miners who had entered the diggings in Mny 
without a penny, returned to Denver with twenty -seven thousand 
dollars in gulch gold, I met another, an old acquaintance, wl'o 
had spent two seasons in hard work without paying his board, 
but still remained hopefully venturing in the great lottery. Fre- 
quently of two equally promising claims, side by side, one would 
yield thousands of dollars, while the other proved utterly worthless. 

Transporting treasure to the Missouri involved the great risk of 
robbery; hence the express charges were very high. Often pas- 
sengers eluded them by concealing gold bars to the value of thirty 
or forty thousand dollars upon their persons. When fairly on the 
plains they would transfer the heavy burden to their carpet sacks. 
The express company vainly endeavored to prevent this violation 
of their rules. During the rebellion they induced the Atcliison 
military commandant to hold one passenger's baggage on his arrival, 
until he paid express charges upon his bullion. The logic of 
bayonets was so irresistible that he submitted to the gross outrage. 

The absence of government inaugurated original modes of col- 
lecting debts. Possession being nine points of the law, it was 
only necessary for the revolver to establish the tenth. But a 
Denver dentist, wearied with vain attempts to obtain payment for 
a set of artificial teeth furnished to a feminine customer, fell back 
upon strategy. Calling upon the gentle debtor he suavely in- 
quired how the plate was working, and asked permission to exam- 
ine it. When it was handed to him he coolly pocketed it and 
walked away. This brought the money very promptly ; for is 
not mastication as essential to dining as dining to existence ? 

'We may live without poetry, mupic, and art; 
We maj' live without couscieuce, and live without heart; 
• We ma}- live without friends, we ma}' live without books; 

But civilized man cannot live Avithout cooks. 
He may live without books — what is knowledge but grieving? 
He may live without hope — what is hope but deceiving? 
He may live without love — what is passion but pining? 
But where is the man that can live without dining?' 

One day an immigrant wagon on Blake street contained a young ., 
cinnamon bear with eyes like glowing coals and teeth like a razor, 
A loafer of inquiring mind asked carelessly: 



I860.] A nARD COUNTRY FOR EDITORS. 305 

' He won't bite will he ?' 

At the same moment he stroked caressingly the nose of the 
whelp. Young bruin responded by seizing the hand between his 
teeth. With air-piercing shrieks and oaths the victim snatched 
away the bleeding member, the flesh hanging in shreds from all 
the lingers. The bear, two months old, weighed three hundred 
pounds. His mother, just killed, weighed eleven hundred. 

Almost every week witnessed gross outrages from despe- 
radoes crazed by the poisonous whisky retailed at every bar. 
Frequently one drew his revolver upon some peaceful citizen, com- 
pelling him to fall upon his knees, submit to every vile epithet 
and beg piteously for his life. The ruffians who did this seemed 
for the time utterly insane. But fully half the citizens wore six- 
shooters, and however helpless for the moment would have re- 
sented the indignity afterward by killing its perpetrator at sight. 
And however crazed the desperado might be he never thus in- 
sulted a dangerous man ! ' The ass knows in whose face he brays.' 

It was a fascinating country for a journalist. Over his de- 
voted head daily and nightly hung the sword of Damocles. An 
indignant aspirant for Congress meeting the editor of the Denver 
Herald in the street spat in his face. Mr. Byers of the News^ whose 
establishment after the first murderous assault was a well stocked 
armory, had his office fired and his dwelling burned, but by taking 
a bold stand verified the proverb that threatened men live long. 

The Denver people, tired of improvising a vigilance committee 
after every outrage, organized a city government and elected a full 
board of officers. The desperadoes — like most scoundrels, great 
sticklers for legality — refused to recognize its validit3\ The cor- 
respondent of the St. Louis Democrat excited the ire of one of 
Buchanan's shining appointees, the Denver postmaster, who was 
also chief j ustice of the embryo Commonwealth, under a move- 
ment for a State government. One evening this functionary lured 
the journalist into the post-office; then closing the doors, with a 
cocked revolver at the head of the luckless scribe, he compelled 
him to write and sign a statement that he knew his published al- 
legations to be false and slanderous when he made them. 

Under that influence which knows no law, the correspondent 
made this voluntary retraction. But the people took the matter 



306 



A NIGHT AT APOLLO THEATER, 



[1860. 



in hand and after a fierce struggle, the postmaster, who was a 
man of wealth, and sustained by all the leading desperadoes, as 

his only mode of escape 
from the gibbet, succumbed 
to the city government, and 
gave bonds to keep the 
peace. In the great war he 
turned up a quartermaster 
in the rebel service, 

Denver already boasted 
the Apollo Theater, neither 
ceiled nor plastered, illumi- 
nated by twelve candles, 
and containinsf ronoh 
benches for three hundred 
and fifty people. As it w;!s 
the upper-story of a popular 
drinking saloon, clinking 
glasses, rattling billiard 
balls, and uproarious songs 
interfered with the perform- 
ances. The price of admis- 
sion was one dollar ; receipts about three hundred dollars per night. 
One evening I saw the leading characters of La Tour de NesU; 
performed not much worse than at our ordinary metropolitan 
theaters. But the auditors were the real attraction. The entrance 
fee was a very moderate price for the amusement they afforded. 
Gaultier agonizingly asked concerning his murdered relative: 
' "Where, O where is my brother ?' 

A sepulchral voice from the midst of the house, answered : 
'/am thy brother!' 

The spectators supposed it a part of the play, but discovering 
that the response came from a favorite candidate for Congress 
greeted it with cheer after cheer. 

Queen Marguerite with due horror gave the exclamation : 
' Then I am lost indeed !' 

A miner, directly in front of the stage, responded emphatically; 
'You bet.' 




A VOLCXTAUY KETRACTIOX. 



I860.] 



VISIT TO GREGORY DIGGINGS. 



307 



The tragic deatli of Marigny, elicitid from another spectator : 

* "Well old fellow, so you are gone up too.' 

And at the tragic close Gaultier, Marguerite and Buridan were 
greeted with: 

' Bound to have a big faneral, aren't you ?' 

Among the spectators were several ladies, and despite the boister- 
ousness of the house there was no gross coarseness and no profanity. 

I took several summer trips to view the mines and natural 
curiosities. Within ten miles of the original Gregory Diggings, 
were now twenty thousand settlers. Some gold seekers were 
realizing a hundred dollars 
per day ; but not one-third 
were paying expenses. 
Two or three quartz 
mills were just going into 
operation. Fortj?" or fifty 
Mexican arastras each with 
two men and one mule or 
horse, were turning out 
about twentv-five dollars 
a day. The arastra is the 
most primitive invention 
for crushing quartz. The 




fragments of rock are 



THE AEASTRA. 

spread upon a circular 

inclosed stone bed, on which a mule walks led b}' one arm of an 
upright shaft, as in the old fashioned cider-mill, and dragging 
after him heavy rocks which grind out the quartz. 

Mining nomenclature is always curious. The name of one 
gulch, ' Tarry-all,' explains itself. Two rich lodes were called 
' Bob-tail' and ' Shirt-tail' 

Prospectors found three blackened corpses in a district of burnt 
pines, and named the spot 'Dead Man's Galch.' 'Negro Gulch,' 
very rich, was discovered by two African citizens of American 
descent. Another ravine had been prospected by three parties 
who all denounced it as a humbug, when a fourth company found 
in it a rich lode ; and it was known thereafter as ' Humbug Gulch.' 

I met an old Boston merchant running a quartz mill success- 



808 PUNISHING A PRECOCIOUS YOUTH. [1860. 

fully, and an ex-banker, a Presbyterian deacon from eastern Kansas, 
selling pies and retailing whisky on Sunday. 

For stealing a pair of blankets, a lad was sentenced by the local 
vigilance committe to a hundred lashes. The sympathetic castiga- 
tor laid them on very lightly, and at the close, the boy asked : 

' Is that all ? Why I have been whipped worse at school.' 

An indignant bystander immediately proposed to give him 
twenty -five more. The precocious youth replied : 

*No, gentlemen, you can't do that. It's against the law to pun- 
ish a man twice for the same offense. 

With the Hinckley express messenger crossing the Platte river 
at Denver, I turned to the southwest toward Tarryall and Breckin- 
ridge. In that clear atmosphere men upon the road live miles 
away could be seen with great distinctness. Before us were the 
eternal mountains, pearly, ashen, or snow-white; shrouded in 
dark masses of pine, brightened with yellowing cottonwoods. 

At the foot of the range we passed Bradford, a city of one local 
habitation and a name. Near it, huge granite rocks resemble an 
enormous quadruped, and an immense human head. 

Passing the unfailing toll-gate, we zigzagged for two miles up a 
sharp hill. Then we were in the heart of hills, rock-ribbed and 
ancient as the sun ; among tumbling brooks, yellowing aspens and 
forests of somber pines and bluish green firs, straight as arrows, 
their tops smooth and symmetric as grain in a wheat field. 

Passing saw-mills, shingle factories and log houses, we met hun- 
dreds of shaggy miners trudging down, to winter in the valley. 

Spending the night at the ranch of a gigantic Kentuckian, early 
morning found us riding again in the crisp air among Titanic rocks, 
tall pines and white-stemmed aspens. Six times during the day 
we crossed the Platte, here less than twenty feet wide. Over- 
worked oxen lay dying among road-side stumps. Toward evening 
among the tall peaks, we found pleasant grassy valleys where ice 
had formed nightly since the first of July. 

We supped upon savory mountain sheep at a lonely ranch, 
where the host instructed my companion to bring from Denver a 
can of Goshen butter for his table, and a hoop-skirt for his young 
wife. We left him banking his log house up to the eaves to keep 
out the cold, already biting, although it was early in October. 



I860.] IN THE GREAT SOUTH PARK. 309 

From the summit of a bill we looked into the great South Park 
spreading out at our feet. The three parks, North, ]\liddle and 
South, in the very heart of the Rocky Mountains are impressive 
natural features. This one is a smooth prairie of crescent sliape, 
forty miles by fifteen, which has been dropped down among these 
mountain fastnesses to be imprisoned forever by their barriers of 
rock. Two little lakes gleamed in the green expanse of velvet, 
winch «alternated with pale aslien herbage, spotted with clusters of 
dead brown weeds. On every side the prairie sloped up gently 
toward the deepening pines of the foot-hills. 

A faint line of road wound across the smooth floor. Scattered 
log ranches with hay-stacks, grazing cattle, snowy tents, and 
columns of smoke fi'om the camp-fires of travelers, formed quiet 
pastoral scenes among long vistas of pine-fringed verdure. The 
waning sun flooded the delicious picture with yellow light. 

Descending into the park we found white bleaching bufKdo 
bones along the level road. The thick matted grass is nutritious 
during the entire winter, and the soil rich though whitened with 
alkali. One enterprising settler had planted a little tract ; but as 
the park is almost eight thousand feet above the sea with frosts 
ever}^ month in the year, its chief value is for grazing. It abounds 
in delicate petrifactions of pine-splinters and branches. 

Crossing several little affluents of the Platte through an icy at- 
mosphere streaked with warm currents like the breath of a fur- 
nace, we reached Tarryall, eighty miles from Denver. 

The next morning we breakfasted sumptuousl}^ upon mountain 
trout, larger, whiter and more bony than the trout of tlie East. 
Their color is dull brown with specks of red; but jusi over the 
dividing ridge in waters running westward, the spots become 
black. Old trappers when lost among the mountains drop a line 
in the first stream, and learn from the specks of these Alpine 
trout whether the waters run to the Atlantic or to the Pacific. 

Tarryall contained two or three hundred log houses, now 
mainly deserted for the winter. The diggings revealed tunnels 
extending fiir into the hills and the surface everywhere gashed and 
trenched. They yielded gold of peculiarly fine quality. 

To the east, immediately across the park, towered Pike's Peak. 
Though grand from every point, the view here is less impressive 



310 



A MEMORABLE SUMMER EXCURSION. 



[1860. 




PiKh S I'EXK. FRO.M FOUTY MILES XOUl'IIEAST. 



than that obtained from the opposite side, on the road from Denver 
to Colorado City. There, forty miles from the foot of the moun* 
tain, the best distant picture is gained. 

Tarrj'ail is npon the tribu- 
taries of the Platte. Breckin- 
ridge lies fifteen miles to the 
west over the water-shed. 
For half the distance I found 
the ascent steady and gentle. 
Beyond, galloping up a short 
hill I stood upon the ridge- 
[uAe of the American conti- 
nent, then the clividino- line 
between Kansas and Utah. 
Just before me gushed a 
spring whose waters feed the 
Colorado of the Pacific. Just behind, were ice-fringed rivulets 
flowing to the Atlantic. 

My road crossed the summit through a gap between snow-topped 
mountains two thousand feet high. Below me both on the east 
and on the west were spread vast troughs and trenches of spruce- 
pine forest. Descending the westward slope I found the pines of 
deeper green, perhaps from their northern exposure. 

Breckinridge, witli sixty or seventy log houses, rested in the 
eternal shadow of tall peaks containing snow-drifts fifty feet deep, 
which the oldest trappers and Indians had never known to melt 
entirely away. Still, turnips, beets, and lettuce were produced in 
the little valley during the short summers. I found ha}^ selling 
at from five to ten cents per pound. Breckinridge, French's, 
Georgia, and neighboring gulches had yielded gold abundantly. 

My most memorable summer excursion was made with three 
friends, from Denver to the summit of Pike's Peak. Before starting 
we heard appalling reports about the difficulties of the ascent. 
Many attempting it had failed to reach the crest. One robust 
gentleman became delirious from the light atmosphere and fatigue. 
Another who had climbed Orizaba, when five hundred feet below 
the top of Pike's Peak was so utterly exhausted that he returned 



without going further. 



But these failures together with some 



I860.] THE "INTERESTING MONUMENT REGION 



811 



ridicule and many gloomy prophecies only made the ladies of out 
party the more anxious to undertake the journey. 







SCEXE IN THE MONUIIEXT REGION. 



As we rode oat from Denver, eighty miles southward the Peak, 
dim and grand, lifted its wrinkled brow from the horizon. The 
first evening found us in the curious Monument Region. Here 
among pleasant groves of little pines are scattered u})nght shafts 
and masses of crumbling granite and limestone, curiously worn 
and sculptured by wind and water. Thej^ extend for thirty 
miles; some crowning hills like great temples built b}' human 
hands. One is called Table Rock, another Castle Rock, a third 
Signal Hill, from signal fires which Indians used to kindle upon it. 

Capitol Rock, upon a little eminence, assumes the form of a 
strong fortress, with frowning walls and arched gateway. Further 
south, on Monument creek, the pillars and *statues rise to the 
hight of fifteen or twenty feet, in differing colors and fimtastic 
shapes. Pagan idols, cardinals and friars, picturesque little cot- 
tages, Siamese twins, and almost numberless images of the palpa- 
ble and familiar may be detected among them. But most have 
the form of monumental stones. Standing thickly over hundreds 
of acres, in the midst of the pines, they make the spectator fancy 
himself in Greenwood, Mount Auburn, Sjjring Grove, or some 
other great American cemetery. 



812 



MUSIC IN UNDERGROUND CHAMBERS. 



[1860. 



Two miles from Colorado City they culminate in huge walls 
known as the Gateway to the Garden of the Gods. Enormous 
portals of red rock rise almost perpendicularly for three hundred 
feet with tenacious cedars clinging to their sides. On the summit, 
where no human foot has trodden, eagles build their nests. 

Through this jiatural gateway we passed into a large inclosure 
walled in by mountains on every side — indeed a garden for the 
gods. Oue vast rock has a cave eight feet by sixty and about 
seventy in hight. Its walla are smooth and seamless. 

We entered by the only aperture, barely large enough for an 
adult to crawl through. Within we struck a light to view the 
weird picture. For an hour the singers of our party made the 
walls echo with the strains of sacred music, always most impres- 
sive in underground chambers. 

After we emerged, Pike's Peak rose clear and distifict, with two 
little spots of snow near the summit, and a faint line like a trail or 
foot-path down the side from the cfest to the base. 

The picturesque 
hills around us 
abounded in game. 
A few days be- 
fore an enthusiastic 
sportsman wound- 
ed a juvenile griz- 
zly, when the 
mother bear ap- 
peared uninvited, 
compelling him to 
climb a tree so 
suddenly that he 
dropped his gun, 
and was impris- 
oned in the branch- 
es for several hours. At last friends came to his rescue and drove 
bruin away. 

We spent the night at Colorado City then containing a hundred 

log houses. 




UATEWAY TU LiAKDEN OF TUK UUDS. 



I860.] STARTING UP THE ifoUNTAINS. 31H 



CHAPTER XXVII. 

The distance from Colorado to the summit of Pike's Peak, jia 
tlie bird flies, is five miles ; by the nearest practicable route about 
fifteen. A Colorado gentleman who had once made the trip be- 
came our guide, philosopher, and comrade. 

Early in the morning escorted by a party of friends we rode to 
the Fontaine qui Bouille, stopping for copious draughts of that in- 
vigorating water. A mile further the canyonbecame impractic- 
able for vehicles ; so the carriage turned back and we began our 
pedestrian journey, 

On and up, where Nature's heart 
Beats strong amid the hills.' 

Like Denver and Golden City our starting-point was higher 
above sea-level than the summit of Mount Washington. 

Six athletic miners, ranch-men and carpenters who chanced to be 
going up that morning, led the caravan. Our own party of five, in 
single file, brought up the rear. We were each provided with a 
stout cane and a drinking cup. The ladies were in bloomer 
costume, with broad-rimmed hats, and light satchels suspended from 
their belts. The unhappy trio of men, in thick boots and heavy 
woolen shirts, without coats or waistcoats, carried revolvers, knives 
and hatchets, and bent under their heavy packs of provisions and 
blankets. My own weighed twenty-seven pounds; and I thought 
it fully twenty-seven hundred before the wearying journey was 
ended. 

The steep narrow canyon, un -marked by any trail, abounded in 
smooth precipitous rocks, impassable for any quadruped less 
agile than a mountain goat. Along the bottom of the "gorge, a 



8U 



SCENES OF PICTURESQUE BEAUTY. 



[1860. 



brook leaped and plashed over the rocks in a stream of silver. 
The overlooking hills were thickly studded with shrubs of oak and 




tall trees of pine, 
spi'uco and lir. 
^^"iM chcrric-s, 
hops and cluster- 
ing purple berries 
grew in profusion. 
Tlie valley 
abounds in gems 
of beauty — 'pocket editions of poetry in velvet and gold.' 
We made our noon camp at one of these which would cause the 
heart of an artist to sing for joy. The brook, first appearing 
in view tinder a natural stone bridore above us, comes tumbling 



CLIMBINa PIKKS PEAK. 



I860.] nature's teurible convulsions. 815 

down in a cascade of snow-white foam, torn into sparkling 
fringes by the jutting rocks, and is lost among the huge bowlders, 
at our feet. An irregular mass of granite rises upon one side 
more than a hundred feet; and on either bank, the singing 
waters are shaded by tall pines and blue-tipped firs. Between 
and beyond their dark branches, a gray, cone-shaped hill, bare 
of tree or shrub, stands in the background against a won- 
derfully blue and pellucid sky. I never felt the utter poverty of 
descriptive language until I gazed upon that matchless picture. 

A lively shower soon recalled us to the practical, when it was dis- 
covered that our whisky through defective corking had escaped from 
the bottles. It might prove a serious loss in case of great exhaust- 
ion ; but after boiling our tin cups of tea by a lire of branches, we 
started on. 

The afternoon climb was still along the canyon, sinking knee- 
deep into the gravelly hill, clutching desperately at friendly 
bushes to keep from foiling backward, and toiling upon hands and 
knees over wet slippery rocks. 

At four o'clock, cold, foot-sore and weary, we encamped where 
our advance party had already halted. Supper was prepared and 
eaten before a glorious fire of tree trunks. Then, for two hours, 
the deep woods resounded with laughter and song. But long- 
before midnight we all slept, watched by the sentinel stars 'which 
haste not, nor rest not, but shine on forever.' 

On the second morning we made hasty toilets with the brook 
foi- a mirror, and consumed our fried pork, biscuit and cups of tea 
while sitting upon logs. We continued through two rugged 
canyons, with a smootli, grassy valley between. 

Manv of the mountains are streaked with broad bare tracks, left 
b}^ land-slides. Vast masses of disintegTating granite are piled 
upon each other in dreary wastes. One huge stone chair overlooks 
a little kingdom of mountain and valley ; but the Titan who sat 
upon it was long ago dethroned in one of Nature's terrible convul- 
sions, which uprooted hills and scattered gigantic bowlders like 
pebl)les. 

The burdens already hung like millstones about our necks. 
I began to comprehend the emotions of a pack mule ; and to 
wonder whether a man who would carry twentj'-seven pounds of 



816 • DISMAL AND DREARY SITUATION. [1860- 

blankets up Pike's Peak, did not belong to the long-eared species 
himself. 

A cold. rain, set in ; and at noon, drenched and shivering, we 
encamped under a shelving rock. We kindled a fire and dined 
ujwn a rabbit, which had Surrendered unconditionally to a 
revolver. 

The only true philosophy of getting wet is to get soaked. 
Moist clothing brings a hesitating discomfort ; but in feeling that 
every thread is drenched, there is a desperate satisfaction. So we 
went into the driving rain and feasted for an hour upon ripe 
raspberries, which grew so abundantly that one could satisfy his 
appetite without moving. Then we returned to camp thoroughly 
saturated, and throughout the afternoon made sorry essays at read- 
ing and whist pla^nng. 

Early in the evening our robust Colorado friends, who had gone 
a mile beyond us, passed by on their return, having given up the 
trip as too severe. 

"We gathered an ample supply of wood. The dead pines, often 
six inches in diameter and thirty feet high, were easily overturned, 
their brittle roots snapping like pipe-stems. As the fire was our 
only solace, we piled on logs until the red flames leaped high and 
chased the thick darkness awa}''. 

Four of us huddled under the rock, while the fifth, as the least 
of two evils, sat grimh' in the open air, wrapped in his blanket and 
brooding upon destiny. The rain became very violent, and the 
natural roof, sloping unfortunately in the wrong direction, showered 
the water upon us in melancholy profusion. 

After many dismal jests about our dreary situation, one by one 
my co-tenants dropped asleep. My own latest recollection of that 
Procrustean rod was at eleven o'clock, when I was wooing the 
drowsy god, with my legs in a mud puddle, a sharp rock piercing 
my ribs, and a stream of water pouring down my back. 

At midnight my friends arose — for the air had grown very 
chill — and sought our great log fire. After enjoying for a few 
minutes the comfort of its red flames — a comfort mitigated by the 
pelting rain — wrapping myself again in a wet blanket, and creep- 
ing as far as possible under the rock, I soon slept soundly. At day- 
light, when I awoke, they were still out in the driving rain, sit- 



iSGO.l 



CLOUDS BREAKING OXCE MORE. 



317 



ting before the flames in gloomy contemplation, like Marius amid 
the ruins. 

On the thicd morning we breakfasted morosel}'', sore and stiff in 
every joint. Less than half the journey was accomplished, and 




"we had but one day's 
t!!IM^ provisions remaining. 
One of the ladies had 
worn through the soles 
of her shoes in several 
places, and both were 
wet, chilled and ex- 
hausted ; but they would not for a moment entertain the idea of 
turning back. 

By seven o'clock we are again climbing the slippery rocks. 

21 



UNDER THE SHELVING ROCK. 



318 FEARS OF FEVER AND DELIRIUM. [1860. 

The rain ceases; the breaking clouds once more turn forth their 
silver linings, 

'And genial Mom appears, 
Like pensive Beauty, smiling through her tears.' 

Behind, at our feet, stretches an ocean of pure white cloud with 
mountain summits dotting its vast surface in islands of purple 
and emerald. Before, towers the stupendous peak. 

In the genial sunlight we begin to feel the comfort of dry 
clothing, for the first time in twenty-four hours, and press cheerily 
on. The hills, swept for miles and miles hy vast conflagrations, are 
black, and bristling with tall dead trunks of pine and fir, like the 
multitude of masts in a great harbor. The valleys are shaded by 
graceful aspens, whose leaves quiver in the still air; and carpeted 
by luxuriant grass, rising to our chins and variegated with flowers 
of pink and white, blue and purple. Fallen tree-trunks abound, 
held by their broken limbs three or four feet above the ground. 
Climbing over them is very laborious, and tears to shreds the 
meager skirts of the ladies. The bloomer costume is better than 
full drapery ; but for this trip women should don trousers. 

After five hours of climVjing slippery rocks, we dine luxuri- 
ously in a raspberry patch, drinking tea from our cups and water 
from a spring. 

Thus far our journey has been only among foot-hills. Now we' 
reach the base of the Peak itself, and climb wearily up the rocky 
canyon which extends from base to summit. The thin air makes 
breathing very difiicult. 

At five o'clock we encamped, utterly exhausted. With wild 
eyes and flushed faces, which excited fears of fever and delirium, 
the ladies fell asleep the instant we stopped ; and one of the 
masculine's also sank upon the ground. Two of us started for 
water down to the stream-bed ten yards distant, but found it 
dry as Sahara. So we limped down the gorge for half a mile, and 
in more than an hour reached camp again, each bearing two cups. 
My companion had barely strength to articulate that he would 
only repeat the walk to save his dearest friend from dying; I 
succeeded in gasping out an injunction to take precious care of the 
costly fluid, and we lay down utterly exhausted. 



I860.] ALL VEGETATION LEFT BEHIND. 319 

But the. strong tea, as usual, revived us all; and we started on 
just as the clouds broke, revealing the mountains and vast green 
prairies far behind us — a dream of beauty. 

Two of the party suddenly yielded to illness, accompanied by 
vomiting fits ; and reaching the verge of vegetation we camped for 
the night. As we rolled ourselves in blankets upon the ground 
beside our roaring fire, another shower drenched us, and then 
turned to hail. At nine o'clock our guide reaped the harvest of 
his exposure and fatigue in a distressing rheumatism, which drove 
him from his earth-bed and held him writhing in pain during the 
night, but disappeared with daylight's return. 

On the fourth morning ice was lying thick about our camp. 
All the party wore a lean and hungry look ; but our scanty larder 
allowed to each only a little biscuit, a bit of meat as large as a 
silver dollar, and ample draughts of tea. At five o'clock we left 
our packs behind and resumed the march. 

In climbing Mount Washington, the vegetation grades down 
regularly from tall pines to stunted cedar shrubs with trunks five 
or six inches thick, and branches not more than three feet high, 
running along the ground like grape-vines. Pike's Peak Affords a 
.sharp contrast. We started in a dense forest of pines and firs; 
but vegetation ceases so abruptly that in ten minutes we stood 
upon the open, barren mountain side, with no green thing about 
us except a few flowers, and beds of velvety grass among the 
rocks. 

The remainder of the ascent is very abrupt. We followed the 
line which in the distance had appeared like a path, but now 
proved a gaping gorge a mile in width. 

The summit seemed very near ; but we toiled on and on for hours, 
up the sharp hight. The thin air made it impossible to go more than 
a hundred feet without pausing for breath ; but amid the grand 
scenery we forgot our fatigue and remembered our weariness no 
more. The ladies, imbued with new life, could only find expres- 
sion in singing the old hymn : 

* This is the way I long have sought, 
And mourned becauSe I found it not.' 

Tufts of wool indicated the haunts of the mountain sheep — 



320 ON THE CREST AT LAST. [1860. 

an animal of unequaled agility. He leaps incredible dis- 
t|nces down the rocks, and is even reputed to strike upon his 
broad boms which receive the most violent concussion without 
injury. 

The sky assumed a deeper and richer blue ; and the fields of 
snow and ice began to enlarge. Even here, hundreds of tulip- 
shaped blossoms of faint yellow mingled with purple, opened their . 
meek eyes beside the freshly-fallen snow ! It was worth all our 
toil to see the cheek of June, with its purple flush, nestle among 
the silver locks of December. 

Finally the last flower and blade of grass were left behind, and 
only rocks and snow ahead. It became difiicult to avoid foiling 
asleep during our brief pauses. 

Just below the top we turned southward to look down a tremen- 
dous chasm known as the 'Crater.' It is half a mile wide,«nearly 
circular, inclosed by abrupt walls of rock, and fully twelve 
hundred feet deep. Creeping to the verge of the dizzy hight, 
while our comrades clung to us with desperate clasp to save us 
from tumbling over, we dislodged huge rocks into the abyss. 
Down they leaped, bounding from ledge to ledge, sti'iking sparks 
and scattering showers of fire, with great crash and ]-oar that 
came rolling up to us like peals of thunder, long after they were 
out of sight. 

One overhanging rock affords to the spectator, lying flat upon 
his flice, an excellent view of the yawning gulf, though its 
uncomfortable trembling disquiets his nerves. At last, just before 
noon, passing two banks of snow which have lain un-melted for 
years, perhaps for centuries, we stood on the highest point of 
Pike's Peak, thirteen thousand four hundred feet above sea-level. 
The ladies of our party — one a native of Boston, the other of 
Derry, N. H. — were the first of their sex Avho ever set foot upon 
the summit. 

Pike's Peak was named in honor of General Zebulon M. Pike, 
a gallant young officer, who discovered and ascended it in 1806 
while at the head of an exploring expedition sent by Jefferson's 
administration. A few years later, before he had reached the 
prime of life, he fell in defense of his country's flag, at the battle 
of Toronto. 



I860.] 



AN INDESCRIBABLY GRAND VIEW. 



821 



The summit embraces about fifty acres. It is oblong, and 
nearly level, composed wholly of angular slabs and blocks of 
coarse disintegrating granite. "VVe found fresh snow several 
inches deep in the interstices, but the August sun had melted it 
all from the surface. 

We were fortunate in having a clear day which gave us the 
view in its full sublimity. Eastward for a hundred miles, our eyes 




ox THE SLJIMIT. 



wandered over dim, dreamy 
prairies, spotted by dark shadows 
of the clouds, and the deei:)er 
green of the pineries; intersected 
by faint, gray lines of road, and 
emerakl tliix^ads of timber along 

the streams; and banded on the far horizon with a girdle of 

gold. 

At our feet, below the now insignificant mountains up which we 

had toiled, stood Colorado, a confused city of Liliputs; but with 

the aid of glasses we could distinctly see its buildings and our 

own cari'iage, with a man standing near it. 

Further south swept the green timbers of the Fontaine qui 

Bouille, the Arkansas and the Huerfano; and then rose the blue 

Spanish Peaks of New ^lexico a hundred miles distant. Eight or 



822 FOUR TERRITORIES — FOUR GREAT RIVERS. [1860. 

ten miles away, two little gems of lakes were set among the rugged 
mountains, holding shadows, of the rocks and pines in their 
transparent waters. Far beyond, a group of tiny lakelets, ' eyes 
of the landscape,' glittered and sparkled in their dark surroundings 
like a cluster of stars. 

Toward the north we could trace the timbers of the Platte for 
seventy miles, almost to Denver. 

To the west, the South Park, and other amphitheaters of rich 
floral beauty — gardens amid the utter desolation of the mountains 
— were spread thousands of feet below us ; and beyond, peak upon 
peak, until the pure white wall of the Snowy Range rose to the 
infinite blue of the sky. 

North, south and west swept one vast wilderness of mountains, 
of diverse forms and mingling colors, with clouds of fleecy white 
sailing airily among their scarred and wrinkled summits. 

We looked upon four Territories of the Union — Kansas, 
Nebraska, Utah and New Mexico; and viewed regions watered by 
four great rivers of the continent — the Platte, Arkansas, Rio 
Grande and Colorado, tributaries respectivel}'- of the Missouri, 
the Mississippi, the Gulf of Mexico and the Gulf of California. 

Upon the north side of the Peak, a colossal plowshare seems to 
have been driven fiercely down from the summit to the base, its 
gaping farrow visible seventy miles away, and deep enough in 
itself to bury a mountain of considerable pretension. Such 
enormous chasms -must the armies of the Almighty have left in 
heaven when, to overwhelm Lucifer and his companions, 

' From their foundations loosening to and fro, 
They plucked the seated hills with all their load, 
Rocks, waters, woods, and by the shaggy tops 
Uplifting, bore them in their hands.' 

At the gorge's head, some enterprising fellow had posted a raili 
way handbill, which with finger pointing directly down the gulf, 
asserted in glaring capitals: 'Shortest andbest Route to the East.' 

It seemed impossible to grow weary of the wonderful picture ; 
but my companions, though wrapped in heavy blankets, were 
shivering with the cold. So we iced and drank a bottle of 
champagne which a Colorado friend had thrust into one of the 



1860.J PROVISIO^rs alarmingly scarce. 323 

packs ; and then like more ambitious tourists, placed a record in 
the empty bottle, which was carefully re-corked and buried under 
a pile ot" stones. 

We spent a few minutes in the school-boy pastime of snow- 
balling. Then, after two hours upon the summit, we reluctantly 
commenced the descent; for living without eating was becoming a 
critical experiment. 

Oar guide, weakened by the hard journey, missed his foothold, 
falling upon a jagged rock. Fortunately the metallic case of his 
spy -glass saved him from a fractured rib ; and after lying upon the 
rocks for a few minutes, he came limping down with the rest. 

In descending, the rarity of the atmosphere did not retard us, 
but we found climbing down quite as exliausting as climbing up ; 
and a raspberry diet is not invigorating. At five o'clock we 
reached the last night's camp, glad to break our twelve hours' fast 
with ample cups of tea and homeopathic fragments of bread 
and meat. 

After a brief halt we hastened on down the ledges and over the 
tree-trunks. When we sat upon a log for a little rest, one of the 
ladies appeared utterly exhausted. We asked if we should not 
camp until morning that she might recruit? She could not 
articulate a single word ; but shook her head with indiQ:nant vifjor. 
Again pressing on, an hour later we kindled a fire, went to bed 
or rather to blanket, and were instantly asleep. 

On the fifth morning when we awoke, only that expressive 
colloqualism which the fire companies have added to the verna- 
cular could describe our condition. We were ' played out.' We 
swallowed our last provisions — a morsel of meat and a table- 
spoonful of crumbs each. The unfailing tea measureably restored 
us ; but in our exigency we would gladly have exchanged it for 
the cup which cheers and does inebriate. 

We descended by a new route over hill-sides crossed and re- 
crossed by tracks of the grizzly bear, and through canyons sur- 
prising us constantly with a new wealth of beauty which we were 
hardly in condition to appreciate. 

After journeying five or six hours, we experienced, not the gnaw- 
ings of hunger, but that irresistible faintness which the Irishman so 
exactly described as ' a sense of goneness.' Endeavors to talk and 



32-i EFFECTS OF THE FIVE-DAYS' TRIP. [1860. 

think of other matters were fruitless; the ' odorous ghosts of well 
remembered dinners ' looiild stalk unbidden through the halls of 
memory ; and in vain we sought to 

' Cloj' the liuno^ry edge of appetite 
By bare iiuagiuatioa of a feast.' 

At noon we halted bj the cascade which had so enchanted us 
on our first day's march, and slept for an hour under the shading 
pines. Then we shouldered our packs for the last time, and 
hobbled on down the canyon. 

At four o'clock our guide, who was a few yards in advance, sud- 
denly came upon our waiting carriage. Now that the strain was 
over the nerves of the ladies instantly relaxed. One received the 
intelligence with a shower of tears, the other with hysteric laugh- 
ter. In a moment we were surrounded bv Colorado City friends 
who, a^rmed at our protracted absence, were out in several parties 
armed with stimulants and j^rovisions, searching for us among the 
foot-hills. 

Two hours later we reached the town. M}^ companions with 
haggard cheeks and blood-shot eyes seemed but shadowy sugges- 
tions of their former selves. Each of the ladies had lost just eight 
pounds of flesh in less than five da3\s. One, whose shoes were cut 
through by sharp rocks early on the journe}^, had been walking 
for three days with i^ortions of her bare foot striking u])on the 
stones, gravel and snow. 

We werp soon clothed and in our right minds, and eating heart- 
ily. Ko lasting inconvenience was experienced from the ti'ij), 
except the most ravenous and uncompromising hunger, which con- 
tinued at intervals for tlie next two weeks. If ' he is well paid 
who is well satisfied ' the journey was far the most remunerative any 
of us had ever taken. 

On the sixth of November I left Denver for 'the States.' Our 
two coaches each contained six passengers, including successful 
explorers and miners, a prospector from Georgia, a banker from 
Atchison, a French-and-Indian trader from Leavenworth, and a 
lady whose husband had recently died in Denver, and who with 
two fatherless children was returnins; to her New York home. Ten 
daj's before, she was lying dangerously ill with t\-phoid fever, her 



I860.] 



GOOD TREATMENT FOR INVALIDS. 



325 



face deathly pale and a flush, purple as ripe grapes, on each cheek. 
At starting she was still an invalid, and the ride of the first day 
and night left her hardly able to sit up. But in the inspiring, 
pure air of the plains she rallied, gained an enormous appetite; and 
before the end of the trj'ing six days and nights her cheeks again 
wore the bloom of health. Another passenger seventy years old 
was also an invalid. For the first two days extreme weakness 
compelled him to have meals brought to the coach. But he too 
gained wonderful strengtli before reaching the river. 

During the previous summer a pon^^ express had been estab- 
lished from the Missouri to the Pacific. It was splendid!}" run, 
sometimes carrj-ing let- 
ters from Atchison to 
Sacramento (about two 
thousand miles)in eight 
days. Once these mod- 
ern Centaurs conveyed 
dispatches from St. Jo- 
seph to Denver (six 
hundred and twenty-five 
miles) in two days and 
twentv-one hours. The 
last ten miles was accom- 
plished in thirty-one 
minutes. 

The posts were twen- 
ty-five miles apart, and the steeds small, fleet, hardy Indian horses. 
The rider kept his pony on the full run, and when he reached a 
new station — whatever the hour of day or night — another messen- 
ger, ready mounted and waiting, took the little mail-sack, struck 
spurs into his steed, and was off like the wind. 

Is there any thing new under the sun ? Marco Polo relates that 
in the thirteenth century the great Khan of Tartary and China 
had post-stations ' ticevty-five miles apart^ and stations for foot 
carriers three miles apart, on the chief routes through his domin- 
ions. Says that fascinating writer : 




■ LIXCULN IS KLEC IKD. 



' His messengers sometimes ride tliree hundred miles in one day and niglit. Tliey 



826 THE TRANS-CONTINENTAL PONT EXPRESS. [1860. 

gallop at full speed from one station to the next, where they find two other horsed 
fresh and ready harnessed ; and continue on Avith the same rapidity. They stop not 
an instant day nor night and are thus enabled to bring news in so short a period.' 

But the pony express was new on our continent ; and Avas sucli a 
forerunner of the great railway that it excited quite an enthusiasm. 
The St. Joseph Democrat thus discoursed of it : 

' Take down your map and trace his foot-prints from St. Joseph on the Missouri to 
San Francisco on the Golden Horn — from the last locomotive to the first steamship — 
two thousand miles — more than half across our boundless continent. Through Kan- 
sas, through Nebraska, by Fort Kearney, along the Platte, by Fort Laramie, past the 
Buttes, over the Rocky Mountains, through canyons, along the steep defiles — Utah, 
Fort Bridger, Salt Lake City — he witches Brigham with his swift ponyship. Through 
valleys, along grassy slopes, into the snow, into the sand, faster than Thor's Thialfi ; 
away they go I rider and horse, did you see them ? They are in California, leaping over 
its golden liills, treading its busy streets. The courser has unrolled tlie great American 
panorama, and allowed us to glance at the future home of a hundred milHons of people. 
He has put a girdle round the earth in forty minutes. Verily his riding is like the 
riding of the son of Nimshi, for he rideth furiouslj\ Take out your watcli. "We are 
eight days from New York, eighteen days from London. The race is to the swift.' 

One November midnight, upon the plains, the little pony dashed 
by us on a full run. 

' What's the news ?' shouted our driver. 

' Lincoln elected I New York gives him fifty thousand major- 
ity I' came back the cry through the darkness. 

It woke up all our republicans who sent forth cheer upon cheer, 
while the democrats were sure that it must be a hoax. 

When we reached St. Joseph there was some excitement; and 
Jeff Thompson, ex-mayor of the city, had issued a flaming procla- 
mation urging the people to resist the ' northern minions.' After- 
ward as a guerrilla captain in southern Missouri and Arkansas he 
found ample opportunity for all the fighting he wanted. 

St. Joseph, already containing ten thousand people, though in a 
slave State had given twice as many votes for Lincoln as for Breck- 
inridge ; and more than forty thousand copies of ' Helper's Im- 
pending Crisis ' had been disposed of by its leading book-seller. 

Now the Crisis was indeed impending; and for several years 
my western wanderings were interrupted. 



1865.] STARTING WESTWARD AGAIN. S27 



CHAPTER XXVIII. 

There is a permanent westerly current in our social and politi- 
cal atmosphere like that which carries westward all material atoms 
after they rise to a certain hight. In 1865 I found myself again 
borne along upon it. The mail companies had proffered to the 
Hon. Schuyler Colfax, speaker of the national House of Eepresen- 
tatives, special coaches for crossing the continent, and unusual 
facilities for studying the vast and varied interests of the West, 
yet in their infancy. He invited as companions Messrs, William 
Bross of the Chicago Tribune^ lieutenant-governor of Illinois, Sam- 
uel Bowles of the Springfield (Massachusetts,) Eepahlican^ and 
myself. 

We met at Atchison Kansas, tlien the western terminus of the 
railroad. A few days before, Indians had captured a coach coming 
in from Denver, and killed two passengers. The morning after 
our arrival another stage reached Atchison, having engaged in a 
running musketry fight for several miles. Two of the passengers 
were ladies whom I had formerly known in Colorado. Five years' 
residence on the frontier had made them so familiar with the 
horrors which captured women suffer among savages, that they 
peremptorily instructed their younger brother to shoot them in 
the coach, rather than permit them to be made prisoners. But 
after the danger was over, they regarded it with that curious pleas- 
ure which the contemplation of perils past always affords. 

Our prospects were not alluring; but the telegraph diminished 
the risk, and we were promised an escort when needed. Beside, 
our coach was to take out Gen. P. E. Conner, commandant of that 
military district — a sort of hostage for the safety of the rest, as 
Punch suggested that the president or a director of a railway 



828 



INDIAN MURDERS AND DEPREDATIONS. 



[1865. 



fruitful of fatal accidents, be compelled to ride upon the locomotive 
of each passenger train. 

Sixteen years before, Conner started from Fort Leavenworth for 
Mexico, a private soldier. Now he had visited the fort a second 
time, wearing the star of brigadier general, and in charge of the 
entire region for twelve hundred miles between the Missouri and 
Salt Lake. 

On the twenty-second of May we left Atchison, I wonder if 
the Almighty ever made a more beautiful country than Kansas ! 
The eye revels in -this wide expanse of softest green. Gemmed 
with innumerable flowers, and darkened by long lines of forest, 
the prairies are a joy forever. 

At Big Sandy, one hundred and forty miles out, we entered 
"upon the track of the Indian depredations of August, 1864. For 
three hundred miles west of the Sandy, every house and barn 
along the road was burned, eighty settlers murdered, and all the 
stock stolen. 

Four cavalry-men accompanied us. We found no women or 
children at the ranches; but a few soldiers on duty at each mail 
station. At one was an ingenious mimic cannon — a piece of stove- 
pipe mounted upon old cart- 
wheels. This 'light artillery' 
had frightened the Lidians as 
effectually as the rebel wooden 
guns, at Manassas in 1862, ap- 
palled the commander of the 
Army of the Potomac. 

Near Kearney a fierce, sud- 
den tornado overturned emi- 
grant wagons, threw up vast 
sheets of water from the Platte, 
and blew several teamsters 
into and across the shallow stream. We were hardly able to 
appreciate its ludicrousness, for we had barely leaped to the ground 
when great hail-stones pelted us like a hot musketry fire. As we 
cowered to the ground our horses reared and ran, dragging by their 
bits for a hundred yards the men who attempted to hold them. 
Near us a terrified mule, having thrown his rider, stood with per- 




LIGHT ARTILLERY. 






1865.] 



TORNADO NEAR FORT KEARNEY 



329 



pcndicular ears, expanded nostrils, and braced legs, facing the 
tornado, a very concentration of mulish obstinacy, ile seemed 
to declare that a hundred tornadoes and a thousand men should 
never persuade him to budge an inch. George K, Otis, superin- 
tendent of the mail line, who accompanied us, nodding toward 
the animal, in a little lull of the blasts asked : 

' Did you ever see a more perfect picture of whoa (woe ?') 
I had always wondered before who originated the conundrum 
which likens the roof of a house to a lame doo-, 'because it is a 
slope up' (slow pup;) but now I knew. Only one man in the 
world could have 
been the father of 
that lingual mon- 
strosity- Otis ft- 
di! 

The station- 
keeper at Kearney 
told us that six 
thousand wagons, 
each carrying from 
two. thousand to 
eiglit thousand 
pounds of freight, 
had i3assed within 
the last six weeks, nine hundred of them within three days. On 
the road from the Missouri to New Mexico, for six months of the 
same year, a toll-bridge keeper made a record of the teams passing, 
with this result : — 




A PICTUiiE OF WllUA. 



Number of men, 5.197 

Nunibei of animals, 45.350 

Pounds of freight, 26,123,400 

For the same period the commissary at Fort Leavenworth sent 
Government supplies westward to the various plains and raouiitai=\ 
posts : 

Pounds of freight, 33,000.000 

Mules emploj-ed, 140,000 

Horses employed, 3,000 



830 PRESS DISPATCHES ON THE WING. [1865. 

A single Salt Lake merchant paid one hundred and fifty thou- 
sand dollars for hauling his year's supply of goods from the Mis- 
souri. 

These items give some faint idea of the commerce of the plains. 
Government expenditures alone for hauling freights and for In- 
dian wars during the last twenty years, would have built a first- 
class, double-track railway from the Mississippi to the Pacific. 

Ten years ago, adventurous overland travelers crossing the con- 
tinent, were sometimes compelled to journey three or four hundred 
miles without seeing a human habitation save Indian wigwams. 
Now, leaving the cars in eastern Kansas or Nebraska, one passes a 
settler's dwelling in every eight miles, until he gains the slow- 
climbing Pacific locomotive, toiling up the western walls of the 
Sierra Nevadas. 

We passed much heavy quartz machinery, including a boiler 
drawn by sixteen oxen. The ranches forty or fifty miles apart 
where passengers take meals, are termed ' home stations ; ' those 
where the coach only stops to exchange teams, * swing stations.' 
By a droll conceit, the drivers call the pebbles which they gather 
in these treeless regions, to fling at their lazy mules, ' stone whip- 
lashes.' 

The dail}' coaches, each carrying several passengers and about 
half a ton of mail, now made the trip from Atchison and Omaha 
to the Placerville railway in California (Shinkle Springs station) in 
less than three weeks. 

We met the California papers daily in the coaches coming east, 
and were permitted to read the dispatches for the Associated 
Press, at telegraph stations. The breakfast of ham, biscuits, and 
coft'ee, on the great desert, was the more palatable, when the New 
York bulletins of the same morning were spread upon the board 
— literally the board — in the hurried handwriting of the operator, 
who caught and transfixed them flying on the lightning's wing to 
San Francisco. 

*To the weary, wayworn emigrant, journe3ang with slow teams 
through these dreary wastes, the mail coach coming in sight im- 
parts new life. It is the connecting link between the desert and the 
world. To him it represents home, government, civilization, 
Saratoga, Banker Hill, the American Flag, and the Fourth of 



1865.] ONE dollIr for a newspaper. 831 

July I' Emigrants and ranch-men besieged us for papers. One 
night, when we rolled up to a lonely station, miles from any 
other human habitation, the stock-tender, ragged, shaggy, sun- 
burnt and unkempt, put his lantern up to our coach window 
and implored : 

' Gentlemen, can you spare me a newspaper ? I have not seen 
one for a week and can't endure it much longer. I will give a 
dollar for any newspaper in the United States not more than ten 
days old.' 

He was a representative American. No other nation so subsists 
upon the daily journals as our own. 

In the summer of 186-4, Ben Ilolladay, proprietor of the over- 
land stage line, rode by special coach from Folsom California, to 
Atchison Kansas, (almost two thousand miles,) in twelve days and 
two hours. It cost him twenty thousand dollars in wear and tear 
of stock and vehicles. 

That was a trip worth the taking.^ — a history of the last genera- 
tion — a prophecy of the coming Pacific railroad, the grandest ma- 
terial enterprise of all time. The very thought of it is inspiring. 
Whirling over the Sierra Nevadas, along the perilous edge of 
many a dizzy precipice — spinning through the all-enveloping dust 
of the Great Basin, with its endless alkaline wastes — rattling along 
frowning canyons of the Eocky Mountains — shooting across the 
sands of the measureless desert, and then rolling merrily over the 
gentle swells of the flower-spangled prairie! Night and day, 
through storm and sunshine, shivering in bitter frost, panting in 
tropical heat, shrinking under pelting hail, cowering in the light- 
ning's fiery track — across the continent, from the serene ocean to 
the turbid river! 

Many years ago, F. X. Aubrey galloped from Santa Fe New 
Mexico, to Independence Missouri, eight hundred and forty miles, 
in less than seven days. He changed horses three or four 
times, and won his wager of one thousand dollars ; but at the end 
of the journey he was so stiff that he had to be lifted from the 
saddle. 

The soldiers who accompanied us and guarded the stations were 
all rebel prisoners or deserters who had taken the oath of allegiance 
and enlisted in the United States service. They styled themselves 



<,332 GRASSHOPPERS MIRACULOUSLY DESTROYED. [1865. 






galvanized ' Yankees ; were faithful prompt and well-disci- 
plined. 

As we reached one station our driver enjoined the waiting 
hostlers : 

' Gents, we are four hours behind and want to make up the 
time. We must change these teams in three minutes by the 
watch.' 

At the last telegraph office before the end of our journey, the 
operator said to Mr. Colftixand his jnirty : 

'The Denver people are making preparations to give you fellows 
a grand reception.' 

In four days and a half from Atchison we reached Denver. 
Scourged by war and lire and blood, the city has grown up 
through great tribulation. Repeatedl}', hostile Indians have cut 
off communication with the States for months at a time. 

The early settlers erected excellent brick and frame bviildings 
on the dry bed of Cherry creek ; and for two or three years it 
remained quite innocent of water. But at midnight, on the nine- 
teenth of IMay, 1864, without any warning, a great storm on the 
plains changed the creek from a sand-bed to a deluge. An im- 
mense torrent came plunging down, sweeping away every build- 
ing like gossamer. Not a vestige remained. Not a relic was 
ever found even of the six printing presses of the Xews office, or 
the great iron safe which contained the archives of the city. 
Several lives were lost. The next morning the creek-bed was 
again dry ; but real estate there, in great demand before, has not 
since possessed any marketable value. 

For two or three early seasons the crops in the valleys were 
utterly destroyed by grasshoppers. These plagues of the frontier 
seem to visit all new States. Again and again they passed through 
Utah like hungry armies, eating every green thing. At last 
enormous flocks of birds came upon their track and devoured the 
grasshoppers themselves, which never afterward troubled the 
Mormons. The Saints thought the deliverance a special interposi- 
tion of Providence on behalf of their prophet and the Lord's 
chosen people. Colorado had no Brigham ; but this year the grass- 
hoppers were harmless, and we found the valley abounding in 
flourishing ranches — the universal term for farms. Ranch, or 



18G.3.] RANCH EGGS VERSUS STATES EGGS. 833 

domestic productions, from their superior freshness, are greatly 
preferred to those brought from the States. A Coloradoan at one 
of the New York hotels, finding a bad egg at breakfast, said to 
the waiter: 

* Take away these confounded States eggs, and bring nie some 
ranch eggsl' 

Colorado agriculture was already successful and there were some 
grain fields of five and six hundred acres. The next year (1866) 
careful computation showed that seventy thousand acres were 
planted; and home crops supplied the population of the Territory 
with every iarm product except corn. 

In some departments of business high prices still prevailed. 
Six or seven daily newspapers were published. Subscription 
price of the dailies: twenty-five dollars per annum, or seventy-five 
cents per week by carrier; weeklies, eight dollai's per annum. 
Single copies, twentj^-five cents. Advertisements, two dollars per 
square often lines, for each insertion. 

At my last visit, five years before. Civilization had barely ex- 
tended to these wilds the tips of her gracious fingers. Now Den- 
ver boasted a population of five thousand, and many imposing- 
buildings. The hotel bills-of-fare did not differ materially from 
those in New York or Chicago. Single building lots had com- 
manded twelve thousand dollars. One firm had sold half a million 
dollars worth of goods in eight months. 

With fresh memories of the log-cabins, plank tables, tin cups 
nnd plates, and fatal whisky of 1850, I did not readilv recover 
fioiii my surprise on seeing libraries and pictures, rich carpets and 
})ianos, silver and wine — on meeting families with the habits, dress 
and surroundings of the older States. Keenly we enjoyed the 
pleasant hospitalities of society among the quickened intelligences 
and warmed hearts of the frontier. Western emigration makes 
men larger and riper, more liberal and more fraternal. 

The mountain view from the city impressed me as more grand 
and beautiful than ever. Bayard Taylor knows 'no external 
picture of the Alps, which can be placed beside it;' and in 
average hight the Alps are surpassed by the Rock}^ Mountains. 

On the way to the mines we crossed Clear creek, which tearing 

down from the range will afford excellent water-power when the 
22 



S34 



LESSOX OF MOUNTAIN SCENERY. 



[1865. 



manufacturer's bit shall be placed in its foaming mouth. We 
entered the mountains at Golden Gate, by the first stage-coach 
which had ever j^enetrated to the old Gregory Diggings. Thou- 
sands of acres, which at my first visit had been covered with stately 
pines, were now utterly bare. The wood had been consumed for 
fuel in Denver, and by the mountain quartz mills. 

After chmbing for hours, reaching the summit of a high ridge 




we gazed back 
upon Denver, 
nestling down 
in the valley a 
city of pigmies 
and play- 

houses, and 



<^S^- 



n^ST /V/jliOMAl. BKU¥^-^4 



DESVEU AUCUITECTITUE. 



Upon the un 
dulatins', sen- 
green plain?, 
spreading out 
in a limitless 
ocean. Then 
we looked for- 



ward to the Snowy Eange, its rich purple streaked with dazzling 
white, and one of its peaks draped in soft transparent haze. 

With profound truth and suggestiveness, Holmes asks if all the 
tongues of tlie world can tell how thrushes sing and lilacs smell ! 
The one lesson of this mountain scenery is the utter poverty of 
language. Not even the wonderful delineations of Bierstadt and 
Church convey more than a hint of its beauty and grandeur. 

The most exquisite combinations and contrasts of color inter- 
mingle. Over vast fire-swept expanses, blackened armless trunks 
of trees stand weird and ghastly ; while beyond rise ridges of 



1865.] GREGORY DIGGINGS AT SIX YEARS OLD. 335 

smooth greensward, or peaks and walls of rugged rock. Through 
the valleys, little streams lashed into snowy whiteness foam down 
stony beds, their grassy banks fragrant with the breath of honey- 
suckle and violet, sweet with the meek bluebell, dark with the 
purple larkspur, or bright with the flaming glory of the sunflower. 

Winding up North Clear creek we began to pass great quartz 
mills. Near the old Gregory Diggings we reached the mining 
settlements of Black Hawk and Central, which thread the narrow 
valley for three miles, in quaint, crooked, contracted streets — like 
those of a Swiss hamlet — shut in on both sides by steep, bare 
mountains. Wood and granite quartz mills, old log-cabins of '59, 
shops, stables, school-houses, driuking-saloons, handsome brick 
blocks, newspaper and express offices, side by side crowd each 
other in the tortuous thoroughfares, while the creek, mudd}- and 
turbid from washing out the quartz, tumbles among them. Pictur- 
esque cream-colored and stone-colored cottages perch in little niches 
of rugged hills; and a neat Gothic church overlooks the whole. 

Lodes real and supposititious have been staked and worked all 
over the mountains. During 1864 the fees of the recorder of one 
mining district, amounted to twenty thousand dollars above 
office expenses. Lodes are traced by the outcroppings or 
'blossom,' a foint line of decajnng quartz along the surfoce. The 
number of feet along the ' lead' which a claim may embrace, is 
decided by the miners, and varies greatly in different States. 

Most of the inhabitants were engaged in legitimate business ; but 
as in all gold regions there were many loafers, chiefly divided into 
two classes. Of the lower, locally known as ' bummers,' it was 
said that when two citizens approached a bar, and one asked his 
friend — not if he would drinlc, for that is superfluous west of the 
Missouri, but — lohat he would drink, seventeen immediately 
stepped up and remarked that they would take sugar in theirs ! 
The more respectable class, speculating in claims or mining stocks, 
talked volubly about the rights of the working people, and of 
themselves as ' honest miners.' 

During our visit there was a hot excitement, very character- 
istic of a gold country, over a contested claim. A suit was 
pending between two rival companies, and the chief justice 
of the Territory granted an injunction restricting one from 



836 



A CURIOUS CLAIM CONTROVERSY. 



[1865. 



further work upon tbeir shaft, but permitting Fitz John Porter 
of army memory, who represented the other, to go on with 
his shaft. Angry at this seemingly unjust discrimination, the 
hostile company placed an injunction npon Porter, quite as 
effective and considerably more offensive. There was a dranght 
from one excavation into the other ; so they built a fire npon their 
own premises and Porter found a column of smoke from burning 

sulphur rising through his shaft, 
wliich made it impossible to enter 
it. An attachment was placed 
upon his opponents for this curi- 
ous contempt of court ; but they 
kept up the smoke. Both par- 
ties were bitter and armed Avith 
shot-o-uns. The whole commu- 
nity was divided into adherents 
of one side or the other, and the 
contest involved much political 
feeling. With the usual frontier 
mildness, threats of killing were 
freely made ; but the affliir was fi- 
nally adjusted without bloodshed. 
The history of Colorado illus- 
trates the uncertainties of mining. 
Gold-bearing quartz opened very 
richly ; and during the first wild 
excitement, nearly twenty millions 
of dollars of eastern capital were 
invested. One company sold six hundred thousand dollars worth 
of stock at par for cash, over the counter of its New York office 
in a single day ; and at the close of business hours was compelled 
to call in the police to clear the room of eager purchasers. 
'Children cried for it.' Thus quartz mills with an aggregate of 
two thousand stamps were sent out, and mines opened. But at a 
certain depth the character of the veins changed. The gold 
Avas associated with pyrites of iron, and could not be sep- 
arated by any known process. From that day to this Colorado 
mining has been practically suspended, but the gold is there ; 




AN' HONEST MINER. 



1865.] GROWTH AND RESOURCES OF COLORADO. 337 

intelligent experimenting is constantly going forward, and sooner 
or later American ingenuity will surmount the obstacles. 

Despite this drawback, Colorado though developed during our 
great civil war, has produced more treasure than any other State 
except California, Much of our native gold is used in jewelr}^ and 
other manufactures, and the following official exhibit shows onlv 
that deposited in our Government mints from 180-i to July, 18G6 : 

California, $584,559,251 23 

Colorado, 12,401,374 20 

Idaho, 10,771.837 30 

North Carolina, 9,278,027 G7 

Oregon, 8,182,544 36 

Moatana, 7,272.456 01 

Georgia, 0,971,681 50 

Virginia, 1,570,182 82 

South Carolina, 1,353.663 98 

Other sources, 9,785,037 34 

Total, 652,146,656 41 

This is exclusive of silver, of which all our gold regions yield con- 
siderably; and Nevada, Oregon and Idaho turn out almost twenty 
millions yearl3^ Most of the yield of the southern States was pi'ioi- to 
1858, though since the great war the product has revived in North 
Carolina, Georgia and Virginia. 

The Colorado mining regions are seven thousand feet above the 
sea, in regions subject to frequent frosts. Still the mountain- 
guarded valleys produce excellent vegetables. The auriferous 
quartz contains from nine ,to twenty per cent, of copper, which 
ouglit to pay all expenses of extracting the gold. 

The Rocky Mountain beds of coal, from ten to twelve inches 
thick, are among; the larsjest in the world ; and there are 
indications of the same matei'ial in large quantities all the way 
from Kansas to the range. Iron is abundant and foundries are 
already at work. Considerable wool is produced, and large manu- 
fiictories are going up. Valuable oil wells have been discovered ; 
one is opened seventy-five feet, and yields twenty barrels per A-aj. 
Now (1867,) Colorado contains thirty thousand inhabitants, and 
its property is appraised for home taxation at fifteen millions of 
dollars — all developed since 1859 ! 



888 VIRGINIA DALE — LOVER's LEAP. [1865. 



CHAPTER XXIX. 

Beyond Denver^ the road had been practically closed for several 
weeks by Indian hostilities. We encountered few emigrants or 
freighters save in large parties traveling together for protection. 
At nightfall their wagons were drawn close toc^ether, with the 
tongue of each under the bed of the next, making two elliptical 
lines which no assault can easily break. Within this extemporized 
fortification, all the animals are driven, the last gap is closed np ; 
and the emigrant sleeps secure from the Noble Savage, who never 
moves upon the enemy's works. 

]\[ore than one Coloradoan, indianant at the failure of the 
authorities to guard settlements and roads, had remarked in our 
hearing : 

'I wish the Indians might catch the Colfjix party; for that 
would stimulate the Government to protect us.' 

AYe were hardly public-spirited enough to echo the prayer. 
The Indians did not catch us; but a hundred miles west of Denver 
the troubles grew so serious that we waited for trustworthy informa- 
tion from the front, remaining one day at Virginia Dale station, 
in a lovely little valley imprisoned by towering mountains. One 
of their precipitous walls is known as the Lover's Leap. The 
legend runs that an emigrant, whose mistress had abandoned him 
and married another, threw himself from it and was dashed to 
pieces, in full view of the woman for whom he had flung away 
his life. The Secession founder of the station, not daring to call 
it Virginia Davis in honor of Mrs. Jefferson Davis, found solace 
in the name, Virginia Dale. 

A hundred miles beyond, the savages had driven off the horses 
and mules from three stations. Two emigrants were found dead 



1865.] 



SMELLING THE BATTLE AFAR OFF. 



339 



upon the road — one scalped, the other with throat cut from ear to 
ear, and thirteen arrows in his body. One of these, with the iron 
point still bloody, was shown to us. The varieties of arrows indi- 
cated that the attack was made by a mixed party and not by one 
tribe. 

On a June day, cold as l^ovember, at the crossing of the North 




INDIAN ATTAIK: AT NOUllI ILATTE CKUSSl-NG. 



Platte river, we stood 
gazing at a party of 
recusant Mormons 
returning to the 
States, when running 
horses, reports of guns and loud yells announced an Indian attack. 
The wasfons of the emiin-ants, with the women and children, were 
at the water''s edge. Beyond them' in a little valley, were 
grazing their weary horses and mules, well guarded by the men. 
The Indians came over a hill, in a sharp dash upon the animals, 
hoping to stampede and secure them. The soldiers- of our escort 
rushed to the ferry-boat to participate in the fray ; but I reconciled 
mysolf to the decrees- of Providence,, content to &meLl the battle 



340 ' INDIANS A LITTLE TOO NEAR. [1365. 

afar off — indeed with a secret wish that I were too far off to smell 
it at all. The river was a safe barrier between the savages and 
ourselves; for the waters were high, and a coach, horses, mail and 
all, which had gone to the bottom a week before, was still buried 
in its depths. 

The sturdy emigrants uprose from their concealment among the 
horses, and fired a volley at their assailants with such coolness and 
precision that the savages fled yelling over the hills, and were out 
of sight again in a twinkling. 

While our mules w^ere changed that evening, at a station fifteen 
miles beyond, we chatted for ten minutes with guards and hostlers. 
Twelve hours afterward, the Indians swept down, killing every 
occupant except two soldiers, who, wounded, made their escape. 

Many of the desert stations are substantial stone buildings, with 
loop-holes in the walls, with shining rillos and well polished 
revolvers hanging read}' to be grasped at any momLMit. Some of 
the women are comely and lady-like, adapting themselves with 
grace and heroism to the rude labors of cooking meals lor passen- 
gers, and the horrible, ever-present peril of capture. 

At one station, by a lurid candle we saw the red-hot brand of 
the stage company, pressed on the flanks of the shrinking mules. 
They had just been purchased to replace those taken by the Indians. 
The next day they too were stolen. This happened again and 
again during the summei'. 

Our road traversed portions of Colorado, Dacotah, Montana and 
Utah, over endless wastes ; and among the Black Hills, Wind River, 
Uintah and Wasatch ranges and offshoots of the Rocky Mountains. 
We saw clear trout-haunted brooks and little lakes; lofty peaks; 
terrible wastes white with alkali ; dreary ashen hills of bare drab 
earth, the parched ground deeply gashed and gullied, the faint 
streams bitter and poisonous, blinding dust filling the air; and no 
atom of vegetable life except the sage-brush and the cactus. This 
is indeed the desert — the very abomination of desolation. 

One of our escort, with cavalry rifle at fourhundred yards, brought 
down an antelope with great branching horns, which he flourished 
wickedly about our soldier, who boldly seized them and then cut 
his throat. Strapping the fallen chieftain to our coach, we con- 
tributed him to the larder of the next station-keeper. Surly gray 



1865.] 



WAGON THREE INCHES TOO WIDE, 



341 



wolves gazed fixedly cat us, until Governor Bross fired at tliem 
with his shot-gun ; then galloped lazily away. We were a sort of 
traveling arsenal, with two or three weapons to the man. 
Attacked, we should have been dangerous indeed — at least to 
each other. That we all escaped with our lives is due only to that 
overruling Providence which restrains the recklessness of overhmd 
tourists, and sets at naught the aims of amateur sportsmen. 

One ni"lit a hucre grizzly struck an attitude directly before our 
coach, and refused to stir 
an inch. An old trapper 
had lately shown me the 
scars on his thigh, where, 
years before, one seized 
and shook him as a dog 
shakes a rabbit, and told 
me of another bear, near 
Salt Lake, who killed five 
hunters before he was dis- 
patched. With these fresh 
memories, we did not 
attempt either to wheedle 
or frighten Bruin, but e'en 
turned out of the road, and 

left him peacefully studying astronomy. As Artemus Ward 
observes of the man who insulted him : '■ He was larger than we, 
and we forgave him.' 

We traversed Bridger's Pass, nine thousand feet above sea-level. 
There is a story of a California emigrant who, a hundred miles 
back, sold his wagon to a ranch-keeper, on the assurance that ii 
was just three inches too wide to go through Bridger's Pass! 

Here the waters of the Atlantic arc divided from those of the 
Pacific ; but there is no gorge or canyon — only a vast desert so 
nearly level that one can not tell when he crosses the summit. 

Two nights later, just as the great moon rose from behind 
eastern mountains, we reached the Church Butte. 




■cco:^-^ 



AN OUTSIDE PASSENGER. 



' If tliou wouldst view fair Melrose aright, 
Go visit it by the pale moonlight.' 



S42 CHUKCH BUTTE AND FORT BRIDGER. [1865. 

The butte is a strange irregular pile of bare gray eartb, half a 
mile in circumference, hundreds of feet high. Crowned with 
masses of red sandstone, worn by the pitiless elements into all 
manner of fantastic forms, the mystic moonlight transforms it into 
a vast ruined cathedral with crumbling walls, quaint turrets and 
niches holding sculptured figures. There too we can trace a huge 
fallen sphinx with face downward, a long colonnade with half its 
noble pillars broken, great human heads, owls, eagles, centaurs, and 
two enormous lions couchant overlooking and guarding the whole. 

Fort Bridger, eight thousand feet above the sea, with gurgling 
rills threading its green parade ground and supplj-ing its neat log 
barracks, is one of our most beautiful frontier posts. It was 
formerly a great rendezvous for traders and trappers. The traders 
lived with their families in secure forts, buying furs of the trap- 
pers and buffalo robes of the Indians. They professed to give St. 
Louis prices; but paid in coffee and sugar at two dollars per cu]>, 
calico at two dollars per yard and wliisky and tobacco at corres- 
ponding rates. A cup of sugar was the ordinary payment for a 
buffalo robe. 

A few of the trappers still survive, walking cyclopedias of 
narrow escapes and exciting adventures — living volumes of travel, 
incident and romance. Buffalo-hunts, hand-to-hand conflicts with 
grizzly bears, long wanderings when lost among the mountains, 
without food or shelter, miraculous endurance of hardships and 
wounds, and deadly fights with Indians, form the staple of their 
legendary lore. Sometimes a vein of quaint, unexpected humor 
runs through their stirring naratives. 

While waiting breakfost at Fort Bridger, in the gray of this 
June morning, our party sat around the fire of the great sutler- 
store of Judge Carter, who combines the functions of merchant 
and magistrate, listening to the tales of Jack Eobinson, a trapper 
of forty years experience. He supplemented his history of hair- 
bi'cadth 'scapes with the j-emark : 

' But the most sincjular thins:: I ever did was to make a hundred 
and fifty Blackfoot Indians run.' 

' How w\as that ?' we asked. 

' It was one year when the red devils were very hostile, and 
lifted the hair of every white man they could catch. Kiding a 



1865.] AN OLD trapper's story. S-13 

swift horse, I suddenly came upon a party of them. I turned and 
ran and they all ran after me; but they didn't catch old Jack.' 

From Fort Bridger in the fall of 1857, Colonel Marcy with a 
hundred men started through the mountains for Fort Massachu- 
setts, New Mexico, to bnng provisions for the Government 
expedition against Utah, They lost most of their animals, and 
were frequently compelled to break the track by crawling through 
the snow. After suffering untold hardships they at last reached 
their destination. American pioneer history has nothing more 
gallant than their energy and endurance. 

We found the long warehouse of the post-sutler crowded with 
goods. His trade was said to net him seventy-live thousand dol- 
lars a year. We did ample justice to his hospitable breakfast, 
and listened wonderingly while his pretty daughters and their 
governess evoked music from their piano. The instrument an- 
swered spiritedly to their touch, manifesting neither loneliness nor 
debility after its journey of two thousand five hundred miles from 
New York, one-half the way in an ox- wagon. 

When we pressed on, the day was charming. Coming from a 
desert dreary as Sahara, we began to view mountains that rival 
Switzerland, and skies of Italian beauty. The air was soft and 
warm; flowers abounded, and mosquitoes buzzed about us, 
though patches of snow were on all sides. From the ridges we 
lot)ked over an immense area of green valleys gay with flowers, 
bright with silver streams; and mountains of every hue, dotted 
with dark cedars, streaked with snow, and lost in dim, fleecy 
clouds. Once we stopped the coach; and in a little aspen thicket 
where the snow was fifteen feet deep, had a rough-and-tumble 
snow-balling frolic. But of this diversion man wants but little 
here below, nor wants that little long. So with well-pelted faces, 
stinging ears and aching hands, we came bock over the green- 
sward, among the mosquitoes, roses, sunflowers, violets, daisies, 
and forget-me-nots, to the dusty road. 

We dined with a Mormon elder, whose young wife rare! 3^ gave 
us a glim}D«e of her black ej^es. The driver assured us that she 
was his jifth — that her four predecessors all ran away from him. 
From his cheerful good humor I think the husband classed them 
among blessings which brightened when they took their flight. 



3-M 



THREE MORMOX WIVES — ALL SISTERS. 



[1865 




ffj-^f .,',■,• >''7/' 'y ..^-p-r J 






SNO\V-I!ALU.\'G IN' JUSE. 



That evening we passed tbnmgh Echo Canyon, twenty miles 
in length, a wouderfal gorge in the mountains, where snows 

often slide down and 
overwhelm travelers. 
As we crossed its 
flashing stream, and 
rattled over crazy log 
bridges, the scene 
grew wilder and 
wilder. On the left, 
stee]i, grassy, snow- 
crowned slopes; on 
the right, an abrupt 
wall of red conglome- 
rate rOL'k, with lateral 
canyons breaking it, 
with the somber 
mouths of dark caves 
opening into it, with 
swallows' nests plastered to its crags, and those 'dewy masons of 
the eaves' twittering about them. Here the Mormons fortified 
on the approach of Johnston's army in 1857. Their i-ifle-pits in 
the valley, and their little stone houses with loop-holes, ou the very 
top of the dizzy bluff, are still visible. Higher and higher towers 
the wall on our right, until smooth as if dressed with the hammer, 
true as if lined by the plummet, it rises two thousand feet. To 
see Echo Canyon is worth a journey across the Atlantic. 

Emigration Canyon, the first route throuoh the Wasatch moun- 
tains opened bv the Aformons, is equally famous and almost 
equally grand. It begins six miles southeast of Salt Lake City, 
and abounds in wildest and most beautiful scenery. 

On the fifth morning from Denver, we breakftisted witli a Moi'- 
mon bishop, who boasts three wives, all of tJiem sisters. 

Up one terrible hill, down on its opposite side, through a 
canyon — and then at our feet was a great basin, walled in by snow- 
streaked mountains, with blue lakes set like gems in its soft 
green, and a shining stream lying across it like a ribbon. In the 
midst of this happy valley, a picture of oriental beauty, we saw 



1865.] 



FIRST VIEW OF SALT LAKE VALLEY. 



S^O 



the neat houses, the quaint public buildings, the deep shade-trees, the 
broad streets and flashing rivulets of the City of Great Salt Lake. 









>:''.-?5|'., 




EMIGRATION CAXVUX, NEAU SALT LAKK LllY. 

Though several miles distant, we detected small objects in the 
town with perfect clearness. From a hill on the west, twenty-two 
miles away, I have twice distinctly seen the dwellings and trees 
of Salt Lake City, And trustworthy persons aver that, on clear 
days, the buildings of Fort Boise, Idaho, are seen with the naked 
eye, from War Eagle mountain, fifty-five miles, as the bird flies! 
Mr. Colfax was met by a band of music, and a cavalry escort 
which conducted him into Camp Douglas, where he paid his 



8-i6 SPEECHES AND RESPONSES — HOT SPRINGS. [1865. 

respects to the commandant and was greeted with the speaker's 
salute of fifteen guns. Then approaching the city, wear}^, sun- 
browned and dust-begrimed, he found the (Mormon) common 
council and citizens awaiting him on a bare hill. Of course there 
were speeches. W. II. Sooper, delegate to Congress, bade the party 
welcome to their mountain home, to note the beautiful city, the 
hundred villages, the two hundred mills and the thousands of 
farms they had established in this remote region. Here in the early 
days had they unfurled the Stars and Stripes from Ensign Peak ; 
here had they mourned the loss of our beloved President ; here 
had they reaped the benefits of Schuyler Colfax's life-long fidelity 
to frontier interests; here had they once welcomed Horace 
Greeley, alwaj^s a true friend of the Territory and an honored 
member of that profession which directs public opinion. 

Mr. Colfax the while, stood in the blazing sun, his head 
covered by a white handkerchief, his face wearing the resigned 
expression of a blessed mart3'r. At the close, he responded in 
one of those pointed speeches which, without a moment's prepara- 
tion, flow from him as water gushes from a spring. A fervid 
eulogy upon Abraham Lincoln ; a warm commendation of the, 
boys in blue who won our battles ; a brilliant picture of our 
country's future, in whose prosperity and honor Utah would share, 
if faithful to the constitution, devoted to the Union and obedient 
to the laws. 

Remarks and hand-shakings ended, we drove through the city, 
very quiet on this Sunday morning, to one of the many tepid 
springs which abound in the Territor}'. A mile west of town the 
Sulphur Spring, as large as a man's thigh, gushes from a hill-side. 
The water is so hot (one hundred and two degrees) that one 
shrinks from its first touch, but soon finds it delightful. After ten 
minutes of plunging and swimming, he comes out cleansed from 
head to foot; every muscle relaxed, every nerve pervaded by 
delicious languor. It is claimed that the water possesses rare 
curative virtues for rheumatism. 

Two miles further is the Hot Spring, spouting in a column 
larger than the body of a man, and hot enough to boil an egs. 
Among the ancients, its sulphurous smell and great clouds of mist 
and steam, would have declared it a mouth of Tartarus. Beside 



1865.] SCENERY OF WONDEKFUL BEAUTY. 347 

it is a lovely little lake, fringed by green poplars, with a back- 
ground of purple mountains, bearing aloft soft coronets of cloud. 

From these springs we rode back, in a glorious atmosphere, 
under skies of wonderful blue. Behind us were the Great Salt 
Lake, and the greater mountains. 

On our right was the shining Jordan, to the Mormons better 
than Abana and Pharpar or all the other waters of Damascus. 
Beyond the river a strip of valley ; then lofty mountain slopes, sea- 
green at the base, dark slate toward the summits. 

Before us was the city, with its flashing streams, its low, adobe 
houses with trellised verandas ; its green gardens, and shade-trees 
of locust, aspen, poplar, maple, walnut, elder and cottonwood ; its 
bustling marts of trade, and cloistered retreats for the offices of a 
strange religion. Miles beyond stretched the green valley, its blue, 
shimmering lakes bounded at last by a wall of mountain. 

And on our left still towered the range, gashed with great 
yawning crevices that would swallow New York and its environs 
— its solid base green and gray, its summits white with eternal 
snow. Side by side, blending into one matchless picture, were 
summer and winter, Italy and Switzerland, the dreamy Orient 
and the restless Occident. 

That afternoon and the following Sunday we attended Mormon 
religious service. The people are erecting an enormous temple of 
granite which will seat ten thousand people and will be one of the 
finest church edifices in the United States. As yet it has not 
made much progress. The Saints worship in a frame building 
during the winter months, and in summer at the Bowery — a great 
arbor with seats of rough pine boards, and a low, flat roof of with- 
ered branches, supported by upright poles. For the warm season 
it is far pleasanter than any building ; a good substitute for the 
groves which were God's first temples. 

During our stay of eight daj-s we were most hospitably entreated 
b}^ Mormon authorities and citizens, always kind to strangers and 
anxious to eradicate any unfavorable impressions of their faith and 
practices. They entertained us in their houses — a hospitality rarely 
extended to Gentiles. They showed us the varied industries which 
have originated in the wise determination of their leaders to make 
them a self-sustaining people. 



3^8 



EIGHT DAYS AMONG THE MORMONS. 



[1865. 



One turned us loose among his delicious strawberries and juicy 
cherries. Apricots, peaches, plums, pears, and apples were all 
ripening upon his trees. Beside them, just beyond his inclosure, 
the dreary sage-brush was growing on the dry, sandy soil ; and 
four years before his garden was an unbroken desert like the rest. 
In his house caterpillers w^ere making silk. The linen of his 




BRIGHAM PREACHING 10 HIS CONGREGATION. 



coat and pantaloons was 
woven in his own dwell- 
ing from his own flax ; 
and his under-clothing 
was manufactured in a 
factory of Brigham Young's from cotton grown in the southern 
counties. 

On the second Sunda}', at the Bowerj^, the congregation num- 
bered fully five thousand. In accordance with the desire ex- 
pressed by Mr. Colfax, Brigham preached. He appeared upon the 
platform in solemn black. He claimed that the Mormons believe 
implicitly every word of the bible ; said that God created Adam 
'by the only process known to nature — just as men now create 
children;' cited history to prove that polj^gamy had been sanc- 
tioned both by Martin Luther and the Church of England ; and 
declared that an English husband dissatisfied with his wife could 
even now lead her to the public market and sell her ! 



1S65.] MIRACLES OF THE TELEGRAPH. 849 

His sermon was shallow and disjointed. A Mormon elder as- 
sured us that it was the weakest he ever heard from ' the presi- 
dent.' But it had one ebullition of naturalness. He said : 

' The Latter-da}' Saints are the happiest people in the world — 
the most industrious, the most peaceable among themselves. At 
least they would be, but for a few miserable, stinking lawyers 
on Whisky street, who for five dollars will prove that black is 
white 1' 

That evening in the telegraph office, Mr. Colfax had a pleasant 
chat with his friend Fred. MacCrellish who chanced to be in the San 
Francisco office eight hundred miles to the west. The next morn- 
ins Governor Bross conversed familiarly for half an hour with a 
member of his family who was in the Chicago ofiice fifteen hun- 
dred miles to the east ! 

Up to this time Brigham Young had never called upon strangers, 
whether public men or private citizens, until they had first shown 
their respect for his position as president of the Mormon church, 
by calling upon him. But Mr. Colfax as a Government official de- 
clined to violate the etiquette of the civilized world by making the 
initial visit. So Brigham, lleber Kimball, and eight other church 
leaders spent two hours with the speaker and his party at our hotel. 

In the long, rambling conversation which followed, Brigham 
observed that he had dealt largely with Indians and whites, 
Mormons and Gentiles, and if any man could show that he 
had wronged him he would restore it fourfold ^ invited any of us 
who might be ' religiously inclined ' to address his Saints on Sun- 
day ; and declared that every dollar of gold taken out in the United 
States had cost one hundred dollars. It caused murders, anarchy, 
vigilance committees and idleness. If the Mormons were to enact 
the lawless scenes common to all gold countries. Government 
troops would be sent to subdue them. He referred to the pros- 
perity of his people as miraculous, and pointedly and bitterly re- 
peated : ' We cannot be annihilated.' 

The next day we returned his visit, at a little building between 
his two chief residences, the Lion house and Bee-hive house. 
The former receives its name from a lion couchant over its front 
door; the latter from a bee-hive (the chosen device of the Saints,) 
upon its dome. The porter at the lodge, a sentry box beside the 

23 



850 FEANK DISCUSSION WITH BKIGHAM YOUNG. [1865. 

gate in the strong inclosing wall, had a revolver hanging beside 
him ; but permitted us to pass, as we were accompanied by a lead- 
ing Mormon. 'President' Young, with several dignitaries of the 
church, received us in his large, airy office, with high walls, maps, 
photograplis of prominent Latter-day Saints, a lithographic copy 
of Bierstadt's Sunlight and Shadow, scales for weighing gold-dust, 
account books, desks and arm chairs. 

At first the conversation was heavy and formal, though Brig- 
ham gave us a good deal of information about farming. Nothing 
is raised without irrigation ; but water makes the soil \ery pro- 
ductive. Corn is more uncertain than small grains; but sixty 
bushels to the acre are a fair yield, and ninety have been produced. 
He once raised ninety-three and a half bushels of wheat to the 
acre ; ninety bushels of oats are not uncommon. Many farmers 
leave their cattle out in winter ; but they often die from cold. Coal 
and iron abound, but iron is not yet successfully smelted. 

A lively general discussion ujjon polygamy ensued. Brigham 
defended it with skill, historically and sciipturally, though admit- 
ting that even in Utah male and female births are about equal, 
and a little sta<i"erered when asked if that indicated that one man 
should have a dozen wives! They had adopted 'plurality' (as 
the Saints invariably term polygamy) only in accordance with a 
special revelation from God. Their morality justified it. They 
had not a house of prostitution nor four illegitimate children in the 
Territory. How did we expect it to be done away with ? 

Mr. Colfax suggested that he might yet receive another special 
revelation — to stop it ! 

Brigham and his supporters earnestly insisted that it was a part 
of their reliaion with which Government had no right to inter- 
fere ; and were indignant at our suggestion that though hanging 
witches, burning widows and sacrificing human beings to idols had 
all been practiced as ' parts of religions ' they would not be tolerated 
by modern law and civilization. It was the freest and frankest 
discussion ever held in the office of Brigham Young. 

Our stay in Salt Lake lasted only eight days. But three months 
later I returned to Utah alone, and spent five weeks among the 
Saints. The notes in the succeeding chapter are from observations 
during both visits. 



1865.] THE CITY OF THE FUTURE. 351 



CHAPTER XXX. 

Salt Lake is the city of the future — the natural metropolis of 
all Utah and portions of Nevada, Idaho, Montana, and Colorado. 
It contains nearly twenty thousand people, and bids fair to con- 
tinue the largest city between St. Louis and San Francisco. The 
overland telegraph connects it with the Atlantic and the Pacific ; 
mail-coaches plj' daily to Nebraska and Kansas on the east, Cali- 
fornia on the west, Montana on the north, Idaho and Columbia 
river on the northwest, and the Pah Eanagar silver region four 
hundred miles to the southwest. The hotel is usually crowded 
with guests; and the streets, one hundred and twenty-eight feet 
wide and watered by little rills on each side, are thronged 
with the wagons of immigrants and farmers, with women 
and children. Saints and sinners, miners and Indians. Some of 
the trading-houses do an immense business. A single merchant 
has sold more than a million dollars worth of goods per annum. 

There are two daily newspapers : tlie Vedette^ representing the 
Gentile population ; and the Telegraphy in the interest of the Mor- 
mons. The weekly Deseret News, almost as old as the city, is the 
organ of the church. In a Territorial population of nearly one 
hundred thousand, all arc Mormons except a few hundred, who 
reside chiefly in Salt Lake City. 

Camp Douglas is beautifully located on a high plateau, two 
miles from the city which its artillery commands. This garrisoned 
post of the United States army has been a potent restraint upon 
the despotic power of the Mormon church, as it affords protection 
to all men and women who abandon that faith. Many recanting 
Saints, chiefly wives dissatisfied with polygamy, have here sought 
the shelter of the national flag, and been sent from the Territory 
under military escort. 






ALL THE JEWS ARE GENTILES. 



[ 1865. 



There is now a flourishing Gentile church and Sunday-school in 
the city, liberally supported by dissenters of every denomination 
who, like all small minorities, are very compact, and remain united 
by the common bond of antipathy to Mormon rule. Even Jews, 
who are quite numerous, contribute to this church; and in excited 
moments talk earnestlv about 'us Shentiles.' In this strans^e com- 
munity all the brethren are Saints, all the outsiders are sinners, 
and all the Jews are Gentiles 1 

Joseph Smith founder of the Mormon hierarchy, was a native 
of Vermont, who claimed that the book of Mormon, the bible of 
the Latter-day Saints, buried in the earth, was pointed out to him 
by the angel Moroni ; that, digging it up, he found it written 
upon metallic plates in mysterious characters, which a special 
revelation from God enabled him to translate. Claiming to be the 
production of several writers, it is about as large as the Old Testa- 
ment, of which it is a weak, incoherent and vapid imitation. Sev- 
eral hundred of its verses are stolen wnth very slight alterations 
from the New Testament, which according to Mormon chronology 
was written hundreds of years later than their own inspired vol- 
ume. Singularly enough, it contains many denunciations of poly- 
but consistency is a jewel rarely found in the casket of the 

Latter-day Saints. Smith possessed 
great force of character and busi- 
ness sagacity, and was said to have 
accumulated a fortune of some 
millions of dollars. 

Brigham Young, who succeed- 
ed Joseph Smith in the 'iirst 
]")residcncy ' of the church, was 
also born in Vermont. He is six 
feet high, portly, weighing about 
two hundred, in his sixtj'-sixth 
year, and wonderfully well-pre- 
served. His foce resembles that 
of the late Thomas H. Benton, though with a suggestion of gross-' 
ness about the puffed cheeks and huge neck which Old Bul- 
lion never gave. His cheek is fresh and unwrinkled ; his step 
agile and elastic; his curling, auburn hair and whiskers untinged 



gamy 




BRIGHAM YOUNG. 



1865.] PERSONAL DESCRIPTION OF BRIGHAM. 353 

with gray. Is he a new Ponce de Leon, who has found in 
polygamy the fountain of perpetual youth? 

He has grayish-blue, secretive eyes, eagle nose, and mouth that 
shuts like a vice, indicating tremendous firmness. He uses neither 
tea nor coffee, spirits nor tobacco. With an affable and dignified 
manner he manifests the unmistakable egotism of one having 
authority. In little ebullitions of earnestness he speaks right at 
people, using his dexter forefinger with emphasis, to point a moral; 
He treats the brethren with warmth, throwing his arm caressingly 
about them and asking carcfullj'' after the wives and babies. 

Provincialisms of his Vermont boyhood and his western man- 
hood still cling to him. He says ' leetle,' ' beyend ' and ' disre- 
membei'.' An irrepressible conflict between his nominatives and 
verbs, crops out in expressions like ' they was.' 

He has observed much, thought niucli, and mingled much with 
practical men; but seems unfamiliar with the usages of cultivated 
society. Yet those who hold hiin a cheap charlatan are wilder 
if possible than the Saints who receive him as an angx-l of light, 
or those Gentiles who denounce him as a goblin damned. A strik- 
ing embodiment of the One-man Power, he holds a hundred thou- 
sand people in the hollow of his hand. Gathered from every 
nation, always poor, usually ignorant, sometimes vicious, he has 
molded them into an industrious, productive, honest and homo- 
geneous community. As a class they have doubtless improved 
their condition by settling in Utah. Owning the most desirable 
propert}' at home and well-husbanded investments in England, he 
is one of the millionares of the United States. He is universally 
popular among the Saints and rules them with utmost ease. He 
is a man of brains, who would have achieved great success in any 
walk of life. Many believe him an imposter and an atheist. But 
I fancy he is that combination so frequent in historj^, half deceiver 
and half-fanatic. 

He has great knowledge of human nature and rare business 
capacity, and is reputed kind-hearted and just in his commercial 
dealings. All Mormons are required to pay one-tenth of their in- 
comes annually to the church ; and, so far as a Gentile can see, 
Brigham is the church and the church is Brigham. 

His inclosure of ten acres in the very heart of the city is sur- 



S5-i 



AN HOUR IN BRIGHAM'S SCHOOL, 



[1865. 



rounded bj a wall, eleven feet high, of bowlders laid in mortar. It 
contains his two chief dwellings, the Lion House and the Bee-hive 
House. In them reside most of his wives, though a few favorite 




BKIGII Ail's RESIDENCES, LION UOL'SK AUD BEE-UIVE HOUSE. 

ones occupy separate dwellings outside. The inclosure contains 
various other buildings for his domestic and business purposes, and 
ample, well-kept gardens abounding in flowers and fruits. 

Babies seem indigenous to Salt Lake. Their abundance through 
all the streets causes wonder till one remembers that they are the 
only product of the soil which does not require irrigation. 

By Brigham's invitation I spent an hour in his school. Its reg- 
ister bore the names of thirty-four pupils; three, Brigham's grand-- 
children ; all the rest his own sons and daughters. There were 
twenty-eight present, from four to seventeen years old, on the 
whole lookino; bri":hter and more intelliorent than the children of 
any other school I ever visited. 

^Vith three of the prophet's daughters I had some conversation. 






1865.] THIRTY WIVES AND SIXTY CHILDREN. 355 

Their language is good, and their manners graceful. One has a 
classic face; and another is so pretty that half the young men of 
the church are in love with her. Afterward, I visited the ward 
schools of the city. There, the foreheads are narrow and the 
average intelligence low. Tuition costs from four to ten dollars a 
quarter. There are no free schools in Utah. 

Though Brigham has buried eight sons and two daughters, he 
has fifty surviving children and several grandchildren. His wives 
number about thirty ; he increases the list by one or two additions 
yearly. The first and eldest is matronly and well-looking; all the 
later ones I saw are exceedingly plain and unattractive. Among 
the present generation of Mormons, the men are far more intelli- 
gent and cultivated than the women. 

The Gentiles relate many stories at the expense of the leading 
patriarch of the Saints. He is the grand supreme court of all 
his people ; to him they carry their troubles for relief, and their 
disagreements for adjustment. It is said that one day a woman 
went to Brigham for counsel touching some alleged oppressiovi 
by an officer of the churcli. Brigham, like a true politician, as- 
sumed to know her ; but when it became necessary to record liei 
case, hesitated and said : 

' Let me see, sister — I forget your name.' 

*My name!' was the indignant reply; ' whj'-, I am your wife!' 

'When did I marry you?' 

The woman informed the 'president,' who referred to an ac- 
count book in his desk, and then said : 

* Well, I believe you are right. I knew your face was familiar I' 

The Saints are fraternal. There are no misters or esquires 
among them. Every body is Brother A, or Sister B. 

Twenty miles from the city is the Great Salt Lake, containing 
seven islands, all of rugged mountains. Though four fresh rivers 
flow in, it has no visible outlet, and is bitterly salt. At lowest 
stage, three gallons of its fluid produce one of clear fine salt. 
Its specific gravity is said to be greater than that of any other 
known body of water except the Dead Sea. According to Marcy, 
one hundred parts of Salt Lake water contain, after evaporation, 
twenty-two and one-half per cent, solid matter; one hundred parts 
of Dead Sea water, twenty-four and one-half per cent. The Dead 



856 GREAT SALT LAKE AND THE DEAD SEA. [1865, 

Sea is tliirteen hundred feet below the Mediterranean ; Salt Lake 
fortj-two hundred feet above the ocean. Both receive fresh water 
Jordans. Both are so buoyant that one finds it difficult to wade 
in them, floats with ease, and could hardly drown save by stran- 
gulation. Neither has any known outlet. The Dead Sea is said 
to contain one species of fish. Salt Lake is believed to hold no 
animal life. The Dead Sea is forty miles by ten ; Salt Lake, 
forty by one hundred and twenty. 

We had a delightful swim in the lake, though the least quantity 
of its stinging water in nose, eyes or mouth made us very un- 
comfortable. When we came out we were incrusted with salt 
from head to foot, and compelled to wash it ofi' with fresh water. 

Then we took a sail in a little sloop, which we all found enjoy- 
able except Mr. Colfax, who suffered greatly fi'om sea-sickness. 
Lake Utah, thirty miles distant, is a clear, shining, mountain-envi- 
roned body of fresh water, twenty miles by thirty. The silvery 
Jordan has its origin here, and hence flows across the beautiful 
valley into Salt Lake. 

I frequently attended worship at the Bowery. The congrega- 
tion usually numbered three or four thousand, and women 
largely predominated. They were neatly but very plainly 
dressed ; kid gloves were few, silks and satins far between. 
Hoops abounded in all their amplitude. At first, the preachers 
denounced them bitterly from the pulpit ; but, as usual, feminine 
persistency triumphed, and crinoline proved more potent than the 
thunderbolts of the church. 

Brigham is the favorite speaker, though he does not preach more 
than once a month. His sermons are insequential and illiterate. 
Heber C. Kimball first vice-president, second only to Brigham in 
authority, and the father of fifty children, is very voluble in the 
pulpit, always profane and frequently obscene in his harangues. 
Indeed, many sermons from Brigham, Heber and others of that 
ilk are utterly indecent, though some speakers are entirely deco- 
rous. 

From the Sunday desk preachers freqvientl}^ speak of the crops, and 
best modes of irrigation ; exhort the brethren to be honest and de- 
vout; and advise them whether to sell their wheat forthwith or hold 
it for an advance. They also read a list of letters for the remote 



1865.] 



SUNDAY SERVICE OF THE MOKMOXS. 



357 




WHY, I AJI YUL'll WIFE !' 



settlements, some, four hundred miles away, that they may be sent 
by private hand to their destination. The singing, with no instru- 
mental accompaniment except a melodeon, is admirable. 
Every Sunday, sacra- 



ment is administered to 
the entire assembly, bread 
being distributed upon me- 
tallic plates, and water, in- 
stead of wine, from porce- 
lain pitchers. Infants at 
the breast are all permitted 
to quaff the water freely. 
The poor babies are thirsty 
enough; but it detracts a 
little from the solemnity of 
the ceremony. 

Mv chief interest was in 
the faces of the congrega- 
tion. Few of the women 
are comely; but very few of the countenances impress one as 
vicious. Nearly all are plain — many extremely so. As we 
might expect in humble people gathered from every nation, they 
bear the indelible impress of poverty, hard labor and stinted 
living. In those faces is little breadth, thought or self-reliant rea- 
soning, but much narrowness, grave sincerity and unreflecting 
earnestness. 

The ordinary sermons are homilies on industr}^ and frugality — 
praises of polygamy, recital of God's peculiar protection to the 
Mormon church, and bitter denunciation of the Government and 
people of the United States. With the exception of the political 
tone and the inevitable labored defense of pol3-gamy, many of the 
discourses are such as one hears in an average New England or« 
thodox church. Indeed, plurality of wives is the onlv distinctive 
feature of their faith and practice. Mormonism is polygamy and 
{)olygamy is Mormonism. 

The Saints' theater is the grand wonder of Salt Lake City. It 
was built by Brigham while the town was yet almost a thousand miles 
from the steamboat or the railway ; and it cost a quarter of a million 



358 brigham's great theater. [1865 

of dollars. Its walls are of brick and rougli stone, covered with 
stucco. It will seat eighteen hundred persons ; and is the largest 
building of the kind west of New York, except the Chicago opera 
house. The proscenium is sixty feet deep. In the middle of the 
parquet is an armed rocking-chair, which Brigham sometimes oc- 
cupies, though his usual place is one of the two private boxes. It 
is open three nights in the week, when the parquet is filled by the 
families of the leading polygamists. The Gentiles sit in the dress 
circle and galleries. The scenery, painted in Salt Lake City, and 
the costumes, all made there from goods purchased in the eastern 
States, are exquisite. The wardrobe is very large and rich, varied 
enough for the entire standard and minor drama, from the sables of 
Hamlet to the drapery of the ballet girl. With two exceptions, 
the company are all amateurs — Mormons, who perform gratuit- 
ousl}", and with whom it is a labor of love and piety. Playing in 
' Box and Cox ' or ' Eichard the Third ' is a novel way of increas- 
ing one's chances of heaven ; but Brigham is the church, and they 
do unquestioningly whatever the church requires. 

By day the performers are engaged in their regular pursuits, as 
clerks or mechanics: and they rehearse only in the evening. Dra- 
matic entertainments have ever been a leading feature of the Mor- 
mon faith ; and these actors play exceedingly well. In scenery 
and dressing also, only three or four metropolitan theaters in the 
United States equal this in the heart of the American desert. Tlic 
performers are never stagy. Whatever they lack in art they make 
up in freshness and freedom from the mannerisms, especially the 
stilted and unnatural readings, of old actors. When a young lady 
of high dramatic talent presented herself to the veteran Wallack, 
he gave her a favorable engagement on the express condition that 
she should not take a single lesson in elocution. 

During the season of my second visit, the receipts of Brigham's 
theater averaged eight hundred dollars per night ; and one evening 
they reached thirteen hundred dollars. Mrs. Julia Dean Cooper 
was filling a long star engagement at two hundred dollars per 
night. At first she found the audiences, or as Gail Hamilton 
would call them, the vidiences, curiously fresh and inexperienced. 
When she played in ' East Lynne ' — that terrible satire on the hard- 
ness and injustice of narrow but conscientious men — the lookers- 



ISGij.] DWELLERS AMONG THE MOUNTAIN-TOPS. 359 

on were moved to sobs ; and tears even streamed from the eyes of 
Brigbam, wbo sat in his private box. But Lady Isabel is perhaps 
the most pathetic character in the whole range of the legitimate or 
sensational drama. It is difficult for an old stager to see it well 
represented, without making what Sam Weller calls * a water cart 
of hisself.' * Camille ' produced still greater sensation. During 
the last scene the audience was 

' Like Niobe, all tears.' 

One old lady left her seat, passed through the private entrance 
and rushed upon the stage with a glass of water for the dying girl. 
Another declared in a voice audible throughout the house : 

' It is a shame for President Young to let that poor lady play 
when she has such a terrible cough !' 

Brigham shows unequaled sagacity in strengthening the church 
and putting money in his purse, by the same 023eration. He 
says : 

' The people must have amusement; human nature demands it. 
If healthy and harmless diversions are not attainable, they will 
seek those which are vicious and degrading.' 

Therefore he built this Thespian temple, which spiritually 
refreshes all the Saints of Utah, and increases his personal income 
fifty thousand dollars annually. 

The Salt Lake valle}^ is walled in by green mountains from four 
to ten thousand feet high, and of every hue, from the deep, black- 
ish-green of the pines on the foot-hills, to the dazzling white of 
the snow upon the summits. Many of these peaks, intersected by 
narrow canyons, are torn and furrowed to their very hearts, and 
sometimes cleft asunder from head to foot. 

Utah, the name of an Indian tribe, signifies 'those who dwell on 
the mountains.' The ^formons, almost a mile above the sea, in 
view of some of the finest scenery in the world, are indeed dwell- 
ers among the mountain-tops. 

The great basin, six hundred miles by three hundred, extending 
from the Rocky Mountains to the Sierra Nevadas, seems to have 
been a vast inland sea. Strictly speaking it is a series of basins, 
of which the one containing Salt Lake is the longest — all dotted 
and inclosed by isolated peaks and irregular ranges. The imme- 



8G0 



SAGACITY OF THE MORMON LEADERS. 



[1865. 



diate valley in which Salt Lake City lies is much its best portion. 
With irrigation the soil is very productive. Settlements of the 
Saints extend hundreds of miles in all directions. Almost every 
valley in Utah is dotted with little dwellings of adobe, herds of 




r!fi^ , 



THE GREAT SALT LAKE. 



cattle, flocks of sheep, great stacks of hay and barley, and thriving 
young orchards. 

Probably eight-ninths of the Mormons are of foreign birth. 
Many are English, while Norway and Sweden are largely repre- 
sented. They thrive in spite of their heavy, enforced contribu- 
tions to the church; for the leaders are men of rare sagacity who 
steadfiistly inculcate industry, frugality, temperance and peace- 
fulness. 

Not more than one man in four or five is a polygamist. .Brig- 
ham exhorts them to persevere in the system and defend it with 
their lives, even against the Government of the United States. 
The women regard it as a sore trial, to be compensated only by 
the happiness of eternity. Often two or three sisters have the 



1865.] PKACTICAL WORKINGS OF POLYGAMY. 861 

same husband. Some men are married to a mother and her daugli- 
ter ; others to their own half-sisters. AVhen possible, each wife oc- 
cupies a separate house or room ; but poverty sometimes compels 
three or four to live in the same apartments. I think they never 
bring in the mothers-in-law. Even Mormon grace would hardly 
suffice for that ! 

The Gentile women recognize and visit only the first wives. I 
conversed alone with three Mormon ladies on their system. Two 
were young and unmarried. The first was an active member of 
the church, and apparently an earnest believer in its doctrines. 
She spoke of it with great ardor, manifesting the anxiety universal in 
the entire community for the respect and commendation of stran- 
gers. She laid great stress upon the honestj^, frugality and hospi- 
tality of the people, the kindness and justice of the leaders in all 
their dealings, and the special favor and protection of the Almighty 
which their history seemed to imply. But to my remark that I 
liked every thing I saw except polygamy, she answered ingen- 
uously : 

' Well, / don't like that, and I don't know of an}- body who 
does !' 

The second, though reared in the faith, and nominally one of 
the Saints, had steadfastly refused all offers of marriage. She 
regarded the leaders as charlatans, declared she would die rather 
than wed in a community where plurality of wives was tolerated, 
and would leave the Territory but for famih^ ties. A few months 
later she did leave, to become the wife of a Gentile. 

The third was the wife of a prominent Saint. I had already 
formed her acquaintance in public, and now I encountered her 
accidentally for ten minutes in a Gentile parlor. Again and again 
had I heard her husband aver that the women not merely acqui- 
esced in polygamy, but often urged their consorts to take addi- 
tional wives. After some general conversation she asked : 

'What is the most noticeable thing you find among us?' 

<ZJ *j CD 

' The peacefulness of the rival wives. The fact that they not 
only refrain from breaking each others' heads, but generally seem 
friendly, sometimes even affectionate.' 

'That is from strong religious conviction, Nothing else 
could produce it. I believe our women are better, more patient 



862 ONE WIFE TOO MANY. [1865. 

than any others in the world. Nobody knows the severity of tho 
trials they have to endure.' 

• Your people have treated us with the greatest courtesy, and 
shown us much which excites our sympathy and admiration. 
They have exhibited little of your home-life ; but that little only 
confirms my previous belief that to give another woman the sacred 
name of wife, is the greatest crime, the last possible outrage a man 
can commit against his own wife and the mother of his children.' 

The lady replied in painful earnestness, with teeth clinched and 
every muscle tense : 

' Certainly it is ! I would rather see my daughter in her shroud 
than married to a pluralist.' 

The first wife deems herself superior to the rest, sometimes re- 
fusing to associate or speak with them, or to recognize the legiti- 
macy of their marriage. 

'Are you Mr. 's only wife ?' asked a Gentile of a Mormon 

lady. 

' I am,' was the reply ; ' though several other women call them- 
selves his wives 1' 

We were told of one poor fellow with a pair of wives, in a 
single house containing but two rooms. When he brought home 
his second spouse, the first indignantly repudiated him and would no 
longer even speak to him. Soon after, the second wife also refused 
to serve him further; and the luckless man was sleeping alone 
upon the floor of his cabin and doing his own cooking, washing 
and mending, while his consorts were at least agreed in hating him 
cordially! Like old Weller he had 'done it once too often.' 

We dined at the house of a leading Saint, whose two wives 
present at the board, but only as waiters, were dressed precisely 
alike and really seemed to regard each other as sisters. 

One portly brother has a wifis in nearly every village; so that 
when he makes the annual tour of the Territory with Brigham, he 
can always stay in his own house and with his own family I 
Polygamy is at least self-sustaining; the women are expected to 
support themselves. 

Many grave crimes including cold-blooded murders are alleged 
against the Mormons in past years, and there were two peculiarly 
Atrocious assassinations in Salt Lake City in 1866. The first victim, 






1865.] ASSASSINATIONS IN SALT LAKE CITY. 863 

Brassfield, had married the second wife of a Saint, and was subjected 
to several harassing suits in the Mormon courts upon charges of 
stealing her clothing, (from her husband I) and the like. While 
walking the streets, in the custody of an officer, he was shot down 
by a concealed assassin, the only instance of the kind in 
American history. The second, Dr. J. K. Robinson, a Gentile 
physician of high character practicing in Salt Lake City, had in- 
curred hostility by contesting in the courts the ownership of the 
Warm Spring against the city government. His property was 
entirely destroyed by the municipal authorities, and after receiving 
several anonymous warnings to leave, he was decoyed from his 
residence at midnight to visit a wounded man. Responding to 
this call of humanity, he went out into the darkness, and was 
cruelly murdered near his own threshold. Neither assassin was 
apprehended, though the pervading eye and far-reaching arm of 
the church could have secured them without the least difficulty, 
had Brigham and the other unscrupulous leaders desired to have 
them found and punished. 

In all new countries scarcity of money is the mother of inven- 
tion. Before gold discoveries in California, hides, the general 
circulating medium, were called California bank-notes. Wheat 
and beaver-skins were the early currency of Oregon, tobacco of 
Virginia, and 'coon-skins of Cincinnati. In the last-named cit}'', 
after the introduction of specie, silver dollars were cut into fifths 
or tenths to make change. The former passed as quarters and the 
latter as halves, the rapacious originators of the scheme retaining 
the extra twenty per cent, to pay them for cutting the coins I 
Whether from their wedge-shape, or in satire upon the persons who 
made them, these pieces were called 'sharp-shins.' They acquired 
general circulation. 

The early settlers of Utah, like those of California, Oregon and 
Colorado, coined their domestic gold, dug from the mountains, for 
the purposes of commerce. A few of these primitive pieces are 
still in existence. 

It is now twenty years since the Mormon pioneers — one hundred 
and thirty-nine men and four w^omen — reached the site of their 
present capital. Their prophet killed, themselves exiles from 
Missouri and Illinois, after a weary journey of many months they 



864 



EARLY TRIALS OF THE PIONEERS, 



[1865. 




AN EARLY MORMON COIN. 

[G{reat) S(aU) L{a]ce) C{ity.) 
F{ure) G{old).'] 



readied tliis basin to struggle for existence with tLe nnkincllj soil, 
with Indians and with Mexicans. They claim that they left the 
Missouri with no definite point of settlement ; that on the route 
Brigham Young saw in a vision a beautiful mountain-guarded 
vallej^, which heaven assured him was their future home; that on 
coming in view of Ensign Peak, the Jordan and the great Salt 
Lake, he instantly exclaimed: 'Here is the spot!' 

Inimediately upon arrival they knelt down and thanked God 

for his guidance and protection. 
The same day they commenced plow- 
ing. An old trader, the onl}^ white 
man within hundreds of miles, de- 
clared that he would give a thousand 
dollars for the first ear of corn they 
could raise from the parched and 
barren soil. But there is always a 
future for settlers who pray and then 
go to plowing. How this strange 
beginning carries one back to that other despised band which 
landed at Plymouth on a dreary December morning! 

Snowy winters and rainless summers, hostile IndiaTis and all- 
devouring grasshoppers did not dishearten the Mormons. Like 
other historic emigrants, they combined strong.religious enthusiasm 
with great wisdom in practical affairs. They learned this new 
agriculture; established homes; began to have cattle upon a 
thousand hills ; contributed largely from their lean purses to the 
church, sending missionaries all over the world. The great deluge 
of California migration furnished a market for their grain and 
beef. Even Johnston's army, sent out to restrain and if needful 
to subdue them, purchased their crops and added to their wealth; 
and when it departed eastward, left wagons and guns, enormous 
quantities of iron, which proved of priceless value to them. 

Nevada and Idaho silver, and California, Colorado and Montana 
gold have contributed vastly to their prosperity. How can farmers 
fail to grow rich where flour commands ten dollars per hundred 
throughout the year ? They have made the treeless desert indeed 
blossom as the rose, and laid the foundations for a rich and pros- 
perous State. 



1865.] HOW THE PROBLEM WILL BE SOLVED. 565 

But it is an anomal}'- in our civilization, that a churcli more rigid 
than that of Home, with a domestic system utterly defying the laws 
of all enlightened nations in modern times, should exist in the 
center of our continent, openly nullifjnng the statutes and 
authority of the national Government. Yet the problem will soon 
be solved by natural laws. Polygamy, like that other patriarchial 
institution which is laid in the tomb of the Capulets, can not 
exist without isolation. 

Thus far Brigham has kept his followers from working the rich 
mines of silver and gold which the mountains contain. This 
sagacious policy has preserved his power, and greatly increased 
the prosperity of his people. But within three years Utah will 
contain a large mining population, composed exclusively of men. 
The miners are great iconoclasts; and human nature will triumph. 

The majority of the women will no longer accept one undivided 
half or sixth of a husband — in some cases a very vulgar fraction 
indeed — when a full unit is attainable. They already show strong 
proclivities for running away with Gentiles. Many have married 
Federal soldiers and prove excellent wives and mothers. 

' By and by,' said one of our stage drivers, ' I shall take one of 
these second Mormon wives mj^self. Only the first marriage is 
good in law ; none of the later ones are worth a cuss.' 

The future miners will agree with him. Manv wull take the 
superfluous women, to find them faithful, affectionate and honest. 

Within three years, too, the screaming of the locomotive will 
be heard in Salt Lake City. Perchance the splendid Mormon 
temple now rising may yet be the depot of the great Pacific rail- 
road. Brought in contact with our national civilization, the 
power of Brigham and his associates will cease forever; and the 
one repulsive and monstrous feature of their domestic life no 
longer stain a community whose history contains much to challenge 
respect and admiration. 

24 



366 FROM SALT LAKE CITY WESTWARD. [1865. 



CHAPTER XXXI. 

From Salt Lake we continued our journey westward by the 
daily coacbes. The stations are ten or twelve miles apart. When 
the vehicle rolls up, whatever the hour of day or night, the stable 
is opened, four or six clean glossy horses, in shining harness, are 
led out and substituted for the dusty panting steeds ; and in five 
or eight minutes the stage whirls on. 

During Indian hostihties the coaches are seldom taken off, and 
drivers and superintendents manifest great daring in carrying the 
mail through the darkness, over lonely and dangerous desert roads. 
One night the coach containing no passengers save a woman and 
child, reached a Nevada station, without any driver. Three miles 
back, overcome by sleep, he had fallen from the box, and the 
wheels passed over and killed him. 

The Overland Telegraph, which Indians call 'the long tongue,' 
follows the mail route. We passed Lake Utah, shining among 
the mountains in quiet beauty ; crossed the Jordan, the last stream 
for four hundred miles, and rolled out upon the treeless, ashen 
desert, where fine alkaline dust constantly enveloped us in 'a pillar 
of cloud.' 

At one lonely adobe station we encountered my old acquain- 
tance, 'Lo, the poor Indian,' in the form of a ragged sorry-looking 
Goshoot who had been waiting for two days to see Mr. Colfax. 
He asked which was the ' great capitan ;' then bestowed upon the 
speaker a long stare of curiosity and seeming approval, for he 
concluded with a grunt of ' Good !' and the request for a little 
' tobac' This man had been a steadfast friend of the Avhites ; 
yet during the hostilities two years before, our soldiers killed his 
wife and children in their own lodge, through a mistake. When 



1865.] EIGHT MILES IN THIRTY MINUTES. 367 

speaking of it be threw himself upon the ground, beating his 
head in the agony of remembrance. I should sym})athize more 
with the general frontier feeling that the Indians ought to be 
exterminated, had I not known many cases of these lamentable 
'mistakes,' to say nothing of gross and premeditated baibarities. 
I am no believer in the Noble Savage. If he ever existed outside 
of Cooper's romances, he was long ago extinct. Th 3 Indian is 
cruel, bloodthirsty and treacherous ; but he often behaves quite 
as well as the Pale-face. ^ 

Twice each day we met a coach going east. For a moment the 
panting horses would stop and the two great clouds of dust blend 
into one : 

'What news from the States?' 

' Give us some San Francisco papers.' 

' Did you have any trouble with the Indians ?' 

'AH set ; go on driver.' 

The whips crack, and the two cars of the desert go rolling 
forward. Now it is only the rattle of the coach, but ere long it 
will be the screech of the locomotive. Here on the astonished 
plains. New York and California, London and China, will meet to 
exchange greetings and newspapers, while their respective trains 
are stopping for breakfast. 

Along plains, over hills, and down steep winding canyons our 
horses leaped at their utmost speed. One route of eight miles we 
traveled in thirty minutes! I wonder if that was ever beaten in 
the palmiest days of the stage-coach. We spent only seventy two 
hours upon the five hundred and seventy-five miles of desert road 
between Salt Lake, and Virginia Nevada. 

The managers of the line manifest great pride in their enter- 
prise, often running it at a heavy loss for months when passenger 
travel is cut off. A single stockholder has paid assessments to the 
amount of twenty-four thousand dollars, to meet his portion of 
the deficiency for one year. The time will doubtless come when 
twenty daily stages will run to fill up the unfinished gap in the 
Pacific railroad. 

The expenses of the mail company have been enormous. In 
186-i, they paid twenty-five cents per pound for all grain used 
between Salt Lake and Austin. Each horse consumes daily from 



868 



IRRIGATING THE SANDY DESERTS. 



[1865. 



ten to fifteen pounds of oats or barley. But the next year they 
stopped purchasing grain of the Mormons and opened a farm upon 
the desert. They sowed oats and barley ujDon the freshly -turned 







: a^:v ,.. -- -^'i?^ 


f't^ " •'' 






" -■' -'■ -'.-^-^ -. ^■--^■-i^ 




- f^ ^^ ,.,^?=.-£!!?' ~ 












■ ""^^"^^^^^^^ 




;■. . •~^t=3^ 




--_ ,.- -"-^iC- 












. — - — =^— -x'-^r—-.^ 



EGAN CAXYON AND FIIIST QUARTZ JIILL. 

sod of eight lumdred and forty acres. The entire tract yielded 
thirty bushels to the acre, and one-fourth of it fifty bushels to the 
acre, saving the company more than fifty thousand dollars. 

Upon all our sand wastes, as upon those of Arabia, the introduc- 
tion of water makes the soil productive. Thus far, irrigation is 
only from streams, except in poitions of California where water is 
drawn from wells by windmills; but in time, simple and cheap 
machinery for irrigation from wells will doubtless be introduced. 
Then the great American Desert will become a thing of the past; 
and the thousands upon thousands of miles of sage-brush and 
grease-wood, dwarf-cedar and cactus, sand and alkali, from British 
Columbia to northern Mexico and from western Kansas to the 
Sierra Nevadas, will yield barley oats and fruit as profusely as the 
Mississippi valley produces corn and hay. 



1865.] HARDSHIPS AND PERILS OF EXPLORERS. 869 

Two hundred and fifty miles west of Salt Lake we encountered 
1,he first quartz mining of Nevada, at Egan Canyon, a picturesque 
valley. Only one mill was running. It had but five stamps and 
was so imperfect as to extract little more than fifty per cent, of 
the silver. But it paid for itself in the first ninety days, and then 
returned large dividends to the working owners. 

Several new mills have since been erected, and the region prom- 
ises very richly. Ore is reported as averaging one hundred and 
six dollars to the ton. Wood costs about three dollars per cord. 
Grass and water are abundant, and the contiguity to Utah 
renders food cheap. Few silver mining regions possess so many 
advantages. 

Reaching Austin our vehicle whirled around the last street-cor- 
ner, ran for several yards poised upon two wheels, while the others 
were more than afoot from the ground, but riglited again; and 
with this neat finishing stroke ended our ride of four hundred 
miles, accomplished in fifty-one hours. 

Austin is the metropolis of the Reese-river district and the 
most important mining region of Nevada, except Virginia City. 
It is built upon innumerable slender, parallel veins of ore, thread- 
ing a belt of country one mile wide and five in length. This was 
the young portion of Nevada. Virginia City, boasted a hoary 
antiquity of five years. But only two years and a half had 
passed since the first pick was struck, the first vein opened, and 
the first cabin erected in Austin. 

The first discovery of silver here was made by Talcott, a pony- 
express rider, in Jnly, 1862. The usual excitement and rush of 
immigrants followed. A wandering farmer, establishing a ranch 
in one of the little valleys, struck a fragment of ore while digging 
a post-hole. It proved to belong to a rich vein, and he sold his 
claim for seven thousand dollars. The pioneers often manifest 
great enterprise, in meeting severe hardships and peril from snow 
and Indians. In February 1864, an exploring party, under Colo- 
nel D. C. Buell, penetrated several hundred miles southward, and 
traveled five and-a-half days npon the desert without finding water. 
At last, barely able to stand, they reached a thick, stagnant pool 
whose putrid water was like nectar to their parched throats, and 
saved them from a horrible death. 



370 FEATURES OF AUSTIN NEVADA. [1865. 

Austin contains about four thousand people. Like most mining 
towns it straggles for three miles down a deep, crooked canyon. 
Ashen, treeless hills, rising for several hundred feet on each side 
of the principal thoroughfare, are excavated like a mammoth prairie- 
dog town. Hundreds of shafts and ditches, surrounded by 
piles of reddish earth, show the industry of prospectors in pur- 
suit of ore. Compared with these, the fortifications of McClellan on 
the Virginia peninsula, and the fifty miles of breastworks wbicli 
commemorate Halleck's stupendous failure before Corinth, dwarf 
to mole-hills. 

There is truth in the proverb that it requires a gold mine to 
work a silver mine, and often to find one. Austin is a city ' lying 
around loose.' Along the narrow valley, huge quartz mills thun- 
der incessantly ; and far up the brown hill-sides, little dwellings 
of stone, brick wood and adobe are curiously niched and scat- 
tered. 

The town is six thousand feet above the sea, and the air so light 
that the least physical labor causes great shortness of breath. 
Persons wearing artificial teeth find it difficult to keep them in the 
mouth, so slight is the atmospheric pressure. Here we first en- 
countered several features of the Pacific coast : 

I. No hotels, in the American sense ; oiilv lodcrins; houses with 
restaurants quite distant and often in another part of the city. 

II. A specie currency. AH transactions were based on gold 
and silver, though some 'greenbacks' were in circulation at 
seventy-five cents on the dollar. Since that time a national bank 
has gone into operation, and the currency is now paper. 

III. Gambling. By day, Austin was quiet — more than half the 
inhabitants woi'king under ground ; but at night it flashed up into 
life and its brilliantly lighted saloons with open fronts, were filled 
with motley crowds, absorbed in monte and other forms of play, 
inseparable from young mining regions. At several monte tables 
women conducted the game, shuffling the cards and handling 
great piles of silver coin with the serenity of professional gam- 
blers ; while men of all classes fought the tioer with all the ardor 
excited by that infatuating pursuit. 

IV. Celestials. Chinamen from San Francisco, had already 
penetrated to this remote region, and over the doors of many of the 



1865.] FIRST VIEW OF SIERRA NEVADAS. 371 

little shanties were signs bearing the announcement so comforting 
to the bachelor heart, that Chin-Kong or Sam-Sing did washing 
and ironing at the lowest rates, with no extra charge for sewing 
on buttons! 

V. Universal hostility toward Austrian and French interfer- 
ence in Mexico. Everywhere on our west coast, a war for driving 
Maximilian out of Mexico would have been intensely popular. 
To call this border the ' Pacific ' coast was a glaring misnomer. It 
was really the Belligerent coast. 

All machinery and supplies came from California, hauled 
by mules three hundred miles through the Sierras and over the 
desert at from ten to twelve cents per pound. Lumber cost from 
one to two hundred dollars per thousand ; wood sixteen dollars 
per cord. Laboring men received from four to five dollars per da}^ ; 
mechanics from eight to ten. The region was turning oat two 
hundred thousand dollars of silver per month. Hundreds of 
thousands of dollars had been squandered by eastern companies 
in purchasing worthless mines and erecting mills upon them. 

The Austin silver veins are very narrow, containing ores rich 
but intractable and difficult to reduce. Quartz mills, containing in 
the aggregate more than a hundred stamps, are now in opera- 
tion. 

Continuing westward from Austin we obtained our first view 
of the grand Sierras. Sierra, (a saw) is the universal Spanish 
term for mountains, from their notched, saw-like summits. We 
have discarded the grand early name Sierra Madre, (mother moun- 
tains,) for the more pretentious and less descriptive appellation of 
Rocky Mountains. The Castilian pioneers also named this tall 
narrow ridge a hundred miles from the Pacific, Sierra Nevada 
(mountains white with snow) from the deep drifts that bury them 
almost half the year. They grew more and more grandly distinct 
before us until we reached Virginia City the metropolis of Nevada. 
With its adjuncts. Gold Hill and Silver City, this wonderful young 
town contains fifteen thousand inhabitants. A mining settlement 
is usually along the trough of some tortuous ravine ; but Virginia 
perches like a child's city half-way up the side of a mountain. 
Most new cities consist of frame sheds ; but Virginia is chiefly 
composed of substantial brick blocks. 



872 



A CITY SET UPON A HILL. 



[1865. 




The region is bare 
and forbidding, treeless 
and verdureless, but of- 
ten breezy as if the old 
fable were actualized 
and all the winds of 
heaven let loose togeth- 
er. Hats bound and 
roll through the streets, 
while the crazy antics 
of crinoline reveal that 
we are fearfully and 
wonderfully made. 

Here has sprung up 
like Jonah's gourd a city 
upon a hill, which can- 
not be hid ; a citv of 
costly churches, tasteful 
school-houses, and im- 
l^osing hotels ; many 
telegraph wires, many 
daily coaches, two thea- 
ters, three daily newspa- 
pers — one nearly as large 
as the eight-page jour- 
nals of New York ! 

Like other young 
mining communities 
some of its elements are 
fast and loud ; but like 
every new State it has 
also much culture, re- 
finement and social 
worth. The stupid are 
not the pioneers of em- 
pire. The ignorant and 
dullard are not the men 
who bear commerce and 



1865.] EXCITEMENTS IN MINING STOCKS. 873 

civilization across the arid desert and over the frowning moun. 
tains. Virginia is more than six thousand feet above the sea. 
Beside the town rises Mount Davidson to the hight of fifteen 
hundred feet. One fancies the Geirius of Solitude standing for 
ages on that lonely j)eak, recording upon its stony tablets un- 
told centuries of silence and desolation. How suddenly he was 
frightened away by the clang of labor, the hum of trade, 
and the sound of the church-going bell ! But five years past, 
a desert — to-day, a metropolis ! The fables of old Romance 
grow tame before these grand enchantments born in the nation's 
restless brain and wrought by its tireless arm. 

In the heart of the city and its Gold Hill extension, scores 
of huge quartz mills pound unceasingly, and their smoke darkens 
the heavens. One of these — the Gould and Curry — cost upward 
of six hundred thousand dollars, and contains eighty stamps, 
reducing one hundred tons of ore daily. It is the largest and 
finest quartz mill in the world, finished throughout with the nicety 
and exactness of a music-box. 

The streets are thronged; there is a perpetual whirl of business, 
and the theaters are open every night, including Sundays. During 
some excitements, mining stocks have commanded incredible prices. 
A foot in one company has sold for eighteen thousand dollars ; but 
it now rates at less than one-tenth of that sum. Six inches in 
another company netted its owner two hundred and fifty dollars 
per month. A speculator, at one time, received twenty-five 
thousand dollars a month from his mining stocks, but had the 
judgment to sell before the collapse ; for the fluctuations of silver 
have been precisely like those of petroleum. 

Here is the original Washoe. In San Francisco it is still known 
by that name, and not as Nevada. It received the appellation 
from the Washoe Indians. I do not know where they gained it ; 
certainly not from any Mahomedan reverence for washing. If 
cleanliness be next to godliness, they are the least divine of human 
creatures. A few of these 'oldest inhabitants' still remain, crazinsc 
in stolid wonder upon the strange civilization which has pushed 
them from their stools. 

This region was unvisited save by small parties of emigrants, 
pony-express riders, drivers, stock-tenders and the few passengers 



374 RICHEST SILVER MINE EVER FOUND. [1865. 

by overland mail, until toward the close of 1859. Then Comstock 
and Penrod, two prospectors in pursuit of gold, discovered a vein 
of dark ore, and were puzzled to decide upon its character. Speci- 
mens sent to San Francisco for assay, turned out to be very rich 
silver-bearing quartz. A great rush for the new region immedi- 
ately began, and the Comstock Lode proved the richest vein of 
silver ever found. It is a mile and a half in length, from eighty 
to two hundred feet in width, and is already opened downward for 
nearly seven hundred feet, without giving out. ' Once a silver 
mine, always a silver mine,' is the favorite theory. It is claimed 
that tliey are never exhausted. Some Peruvian lodes are already 
worked to the depth of seventeen hundred feet. 

The Comstock has yielded wonderfully. From twelve hundred 
feet in length, the Gould and Curry company have taken twelve 
millions of dollars; and four millions were extracted from one 
' pocket.' The mine originally cost the company three thousand 
dollars. 

Upon this Comstock Lode began the silver-mining of the United 
States — an industry yet in its infancy, but destined to prove one 
of the most important interests of the nation. It is the sole 
pursuit of Nevada, which has sprung up on the desert and was 
admitted to the Union in 1863. During 1865, the Wells-Fargo 
express carried from Nevada to San Francisco fifteen million 
dollars in bullion, the year's product of this youngest State, born 
at the outset of a great civil war. 

This silver ore is very easily reduced. That of Austin, Egan 
Canyon and some districts of Idaho must be roasted in addition. 
In Utah and Arizona many of the silver ores require smelting. 
The Austin veins are only from six to twenty inches wide. There 
one stamp will reduce but half a ton a day ; crushing costs eighty 
dollars per ton, and ore must yield one hundred dollars per ton to 
pay for working. Here is only the one great Comstock Lode, 
sometimes eight}^ feet in breadth ; one stamp wall crush daily a 
ton and a quarter, and ores which yield twenty-five dollars are 
profitable. In California, where fuel, labor and water are cheap, 
ores which contain six dollars to the ton pay for working, and 
nine-dollar ores are very lucrative. Hasten the Pacific railroad 1 

Mines are bought and sold by the foot. A thin slice of beet 



1865.] 



CURIOUS INVENTIONS OF MINERS. 



375 



inserted in an apple will represent a silver vein, and tlie apple 
inclosing it the wall-rock. A ' foot ' is twelve inches in length on 
the vein, including its entire width, whether six inches or sixty 
feet, and its whole depth down toward the earth's center. How deep 
silver veins extend is only conjectured. In Mexico and South 
America some have been worked for three hundred years. Of the 
hundreds opened in Nevada but few have yet proved remunera- 
tive. Many companies after immense expenditure reap only as- 
sessments, which in this region are termed * Irish dividends.' 

There are many ingenious inventions. The ore comes from the 
mines in fragments as large as a man's head. They were formerly 
broken by hand with sledge-hammers into pieces small enough to 
go under the stamps. Now a machine with a ' hopper ' like a 
grist-mill seizes them and 
chews them with its iron 
teeth to the proper fine- 
ness, like bits of cheese. 
At the Savage we saw a 
new 'safety cage ' for low- 
ering miners and visitors 
down the shaft. A roof 
of boiler-iron protects the 
head against missiles 
falling from above. In 
our presence the superin- 
tendent loaded one of these 
cages with a ton of ore, 
and then, two hundred 
feet above the bottom of 

the mine and about as far below the surface, cut the rope, 
heavy car fell two or three feet, and then suddenly stopped, 
strong arms of steel darting oat horizontally struck into the wall 
on either side, and held the burden firmly over the dark abyss! 
It was precisely like a falling man throwing out his hands to grasp 
the nearest object — a marvelous counterfeit of human instinct. 

The subterranean tunnels and chambers are planked and tim- 
bered to prevent them from falling in. Some of the timbers, 
crushed and half broken by the weight of rock, suggest unpleas- 




TliE CUU^HEU TIMBERS. 



The 
Two 



876 FOUR HUNDRED FEET UNDER GROUND. [1865. 

ant possibilities as one creeps under them. We saw a new ma- 
chine mortise and frame both ends of a pine joist seven feet long 
by fourteen inches square, in two minutes and forty -five seconds. 
The proprietors of the Savage assured us that it was saving them 
eighty dollars per day. These are all the productions of practical 
working miners. Theorists and savaus are held in amusing con- 
tempt. The workmen declare that they find the richest ore where 
the geologists pronounced the existence of silver utterly impossible, 
and vice versa. 

The city stands directly over the Comstock Lode, which is 
honeycombed with hundreds of subterranean tunnels and cham- 
bers, from twenty to six hundred feet below the surfoce. 

Standing upon a little platform and holding by an iron bar 
overhead, down, down a dark, narrow perpendicular shaft we 
shot breathless through the dense darkness. In a moment 
the rush of air ceased, and four hundred feet under ground we 
stepped into a chamber of the Gould and Curry. Alread}" thirty- 
five chambers, seven feet in hight, have been opened and tim- 
bered one above another; and the 'drifts' and tunnels seem end- 
less. There is doubtless more lumber in the Gould and Curry 
mine than in the whole city of Virginia above ground. 

Sometimes the ore ceases, the wall rocks unite and the vein 
seems to give out. Then, hundreds of feet below, a long tunnel is 
run in from the hill-side, and in each case after morrths of labor 
and enormous expenditure, the ore has been struck again at a 
lower level. 

We walked for hours through long hollow passages where the 
blows of the pick rang and echoed, while flaring caudles threw 
their lurid light over perspiring miners and carmen. Oar stair- 
way labors ended in climbing a perpendicular ladder one hundred 
and twenty feet high. Some one kindly suggested that on account 
of weakness I should lead the party. A few rounds up, my can- 
dle went out; and toward the top a sensation of faintness came 
over me in the thin, close air. Glancing instinctively at the suc- 
cession of tapers twinkling in the dark chasm beneath, I shuddered 
to think what a clean sweep of every man from the ladder my fall 
would produce! But we all mastered the ascent, mounted the cage 
again, and it bounded up into daylight like a schoolboy's ball. 



1865.] 



ORES SENT ABROAD FOR REDUCTION, 



377 



The Gould and 
Curry mill is kept 
running day and 
night by two sets of 
workmen. It crush- 
es only the lower 
grades of ore. All 
yielding more than 
one thousand dollars 
per ton is sent in 
wagons over the Si- 
erras to tlie railroad 
and thence shipped, 
via San Francisco, 
to Swansea in 
Wales. Even from 
Austin, rich ore is 
hauled four hun- 
dred miles and sent 
abroad for crushing. 

Swansea mills 
guarantee that they 
will extract all the 
silver to the full 
amount of the as- 
say; Virginia mills 
agree to take out 
only eighty per 
cent. On the com- 
pletion of the Pacific 
railway, this branch 
of carrying-trade 
alone will become 
immense, unless we 
acquire the same 
subtlety to extract 
all the metal which 
Welsh and German 





ox THE LADDKK. 



mills have attained. 
The average Nevada 
ore yields two dol- 
lars of silver to one 
of gold. The Gould 
and Curry company 
have paid nearly a 
million of dollars in 
a single year for 
transportation be- 
tween Virginia and 
San Francisco. 

The profits of 
many of the richest 
mines have been 
consumed in litiga- 
tion about titles. 
One company paid 
its attorneys forty 
thousand dollars a 
year for legal ser- 
vices. Another paid 
the same firm a sin- 
gle fee of a hundred 
thousand dollars. 

I have spoken 
onl}' of those regions 
in which mining is 
carried on exten- 
sively. Other sec- 
tions where de- 
velopment is just 
beginning are 

equally rich in 
val uable ores. 

The Humboldt re- 
gion north of Vir- 
ginia, a large tract 



878 FIVE HUNDRED MILLIONS PER ANNUM [1865. 

south of Austin, and the Pah-Rauagat district near the Colorado 
river, are said to contain larger and more remunerative mines than 
have yet been opened ; but no single vein has been found equal- 
ing the Cornstock Lode, which has already yielded more than sixty 
millions of dollars. 

Senator Nye believes that Nevada contains more silver ore 
than all the rest of the world. Bishop Simpson insists that our 
silver resources are sufficient to pay off a national debt of twenty 
billions, present each returned soldier of the Union with a silver 
musket, and then plate all our war vessels with silver thicker than 
they are now sheathed with iron. Doubtless both gentlemen are 
over-sanguine ; but the ores of Nevada seem practically inexhaust- 
ible; and our silver mining is yet in its infancy. Every dollar 
spent in developing our quartz lodes enhances the value of every 
foot of real estate in the Atlantic cities, and every acre of farming 
land in the Union ; and enriches every mercantile, manufacturing 
and railroad interest. Within fifteen years after the Pacific railroad 
is completed the silver and gold mines of the United States will be 
yielding five hundred millions of dollars per annum. 



1865.] CARSON CITY AND CARSON VALLEY. 379 



CHAPTER XXXII. 

Nevada abounds in hot springs. A few miles from Virginia, 
over a tract a mile long following the course of a littl§ brook, 
sulphur- water boils and throbs under ground, here and there 
breaking through in jets of hot water and steam. At one point 
rises from the ground a fountain six or eight feet high, puffing like 
a high-pressure steamer ; wherefore all the waters are known as the 
' Steamboat Springs.' Like the great sulphur springs at Salt Lake 
they possess much curative virtue, and are especially useful in 
rheumatism. 

Hot springs, deserts, alkaline waters, precious metals and 
precious stones, seem everywhere to have natural affinity for each 
other. Marco Polo's ancient accounts of wells of petroleum 
which had caught fire and which the Persians worshipped; of hot 
springs with swimming baths 'very salutary in cutaneous and 
other diseases ;' of salt and bitter desert waters M'hich ' produce 
violent purging if a man tastes even a drop ;' ' mountains formed 
entirely of salt;' deep caverns 'cut by those who worked silver 
mines ;' deposits of lapis lazuli, rubies, jasper, chalcedony and as- 
bestos, in Tartary, read like descriptions of our own mining States. 

Sixteen miles west of Virginia, Carson Cif.y, the pleasant 
capital of the State, nestles in a green valley at the foot of the 
Sierras. The city and the neighboring river perpetuate the name 
of Kit Carson, the trapper and scout. 

Carson valley is the largest and richest farming region of 
Nevada. The State looks so utterly barren and desolate that early 
settlers believed all its supplies must be drawn from Utah and 
California. Nothing is raised without irrigation ; but experi- 
ence proves that many of its little valleys have great agricultural 



880 EARLIEST OFFICERS OF NEVADA. [1865. 

capacity, and indicates that the State will one day become self- 
sustaining. Still its chief interest will be silver mining. 

There is some foundation for the satire of a tourist, who insists 
that the Eocky Mountains, the desert, and the Sierras, must be 
infinitely rich in mhierals because they are worthless for any thing 
else ! Indeed, there seems to be a universal truth in quaint old 
Wither's observations upon gold : 

' I've heard those say who travel to the "West, 
"Whence this beloved metal is encreast, 
That in the places where such minerals be 
Is neither grass, nor herb, nor plant, nor tree.' 

In most new mining States rhetorical acrobats, donning blue 
shirts and buckskin pantaloons, drink bad whisky with the miners 
and harangue themselves into Congress. These political Micaw- 
bers never ivill desert the honest miners, nor stop abusing the 
Government for disregarding western interests. 

Nevada was wiser in the bestowal of her public trusts. Governor 
H. G. Blaisdel her first executive, was a San Francisco merchant. 
Through a sudden decline in corn, he failed for seventy-five 
thousand dollars. Coming to Nevada and beginning life anew, he 
went into quartz mining; and in ten years returned to San Fran- 
cisco and paid to his creditors every dollar of the old indebtedness. 
A practical miner, minutely familiar with the interest of the young 
State, he filled her highest office with ability and fitness. 

William M. Stewart, one of her first United States senators, was 
also a working miner, and able, in the national councils, to give 
comprehensive and minute information touching the resources, 
developments and needs of our mineral States. 

At Carson, as usual, Mr. Colfax was welcomed by officials and 
citizens, with processions, banners and artillery salute. Here as in 
Virginia, we encountered the messengers and officers of the great 
Wells-Fargo express company, which transports nearly all the 
freight and treasure and much of the mail matter of the Pacific 
coast. Despite the difficulties of building up such an enterprise 
in a new, sparsely-settled country, it appeared better managed 
and more popular among all classes than any similar organization 
in the United States. It was then confined to our west coast, but 



1865.] 



LAKE TAHOE, OX SIERRA NEVADAS. 



K81 




I.OUIS .Mt LAXE, 
PRESIDENT WELLS-FARGO EXPRESS. 



now it covers the vast region between the Missouri and the 
Pacific; and with special fitness, Louis McLane who organized 
and managed it for fifteen years in 
Cahfornia, is the president of the 
enlarged company, whose head- 
quarters have been transferred to 
New York. 

After some jileasant hours in 
Carson, we continued westward 
in charge of Colonel F, A. Bee, 
of Placerville California, builder 
of the first trans-continental tele- 
graph. 

A de]i2:htful evening drive of 
thirteen miles, up the Sierras, 
brought us to Tahoe, by 

far the most beautiful lake in the United States. The air was 
sweet with the breath of the pines; the eye feasted on deep green 
valleys, great mountains of rock, and hills studded with ever- 
greens. The peerless little lake lies among the clouds, more than 
a mile above sea level. It stretches for twenty miles, a shining 
mirror set round with somber firs and bounded by hazy moun- 
tains. In the quiet night we strolled down to the shore and 
lounged on a pile of lumber, listening to the wind's low moan 
through the pines, and the wave's soft ripple against the sand. 
The crescent moon made in the burnished lake a great field of 
light, narrowing toward us until, in the low swell, it broke into a 
mass of sparkling silver chains. 

The next morning the melody of singing birds awoke me, 
pouring in through my open window at the Glcnbrook House. 
We breakfasted upon the lake trout, which weigh from one to 
twenty-five pounds. Then we enjoyed a ride of two hours upon 
the little steamer ' Governor Blaisdel,' which left the water in our 
wake a streak of indigo blue. The craft loohs but little longer than 
his excellency, who stands nearly six feet six ! 

Tahoe is probably the highest lake on the globe, navigated by 
a steamboat. It seems as perfectly transparent as if the water 
were air. The bottom is seen with distinctness at the depth of 

25 



882 SEVEN THOUSAND FEET ABOVE SEA-LEVEL. [1865. 

nearly a hundred feet. In some portions it has been found more 
than fifteen hundred feet deep. All around, the irregular trace 
dividing the sea-green of the shallow waters from the sky-blue of 
the depths, is as well defined as a chalk-line on a blackboard. 
The shores abound in shining black sand. A movement, em- 
inently characteristic of the large ideas of the Californians, is on 
foot, to tunnel the Sierras and supply San Francisco and other 
large towns with water from Tahoe. 

The State line ci'osses the lake; and we soon passed into Cali- 
fornia. At the Lake House we parted fi-om the twenty Nevada 
friends who had accompanied us; and exchanged the steamer for 
a six-horse stage coach of the Pioneer Line. Whirling along up 
the smooth, winding, graded road, we were among bare granitic 
peaks of white, gray and brown, in air pungent with odors of 
the pine and the slender balsam fir. Manj- noble pines, one hun- 
dred and fifty feet high and straight as arrows, are covered on the 
north side with rich, yellowish-green moss. Rivulets leap 
hundreds of feet down the abrupt mountain sides, and. flung off 
by the jutting rocks, bend in arches of alabaster whiteness. They 
recall the fine conceit of the Spanish poet that a brook is the laugh 
of the mountain ! 

Crossing the summit seven thousand feet above the sea, we 
looked back upon a grand panorama. Far below us glittci-cd 
Tahoe, brightest gem in the mountain coronet of those twin 
queens, the Golden and the Silver State. We saw every variety 
of form and color, mountain and valley, the deepest green and the 
purest snow. Then we began to descend. Here, where the tui-n 
pike in winter is sometimes obstructed by twenty feet of snow, 
pass three telegraph wires and eight daily coaches. 

The winding road is graded like a railway — the finest of turn- 
pikes for the perfection of staging. In early days the ride was 
very perilous: along rocky sidling roads, upon the edge of dizzy 
precipices, where one looked down for a thousand feet upon patches 
of greensward and silver streams. 

When the editor of the Tribune crossed in 1859, he was driven 
by Hank Monk, a famous Jehu who like the son of Kimshi, 
driveth furiously. An apochryphal story of this ride is current 
all over the great plains and among the mountains. The editor 



1865.] 



A LEGEND OF STAGE DRIVING. 



383 



had a lecture engagement in Placerville, and as the horses climbed 
slowly up the eastern side he feared he would be too late. Twice 
he urged the driver forward, but the reticent Alonk paid not the 
slightest heed. Soon, they reached the summit and began to de- 
scend. Then cracked the long-idle whip; and the horses at full 
run, tore along beside precipices where a single stone or mis-step 
might send them rolling over, in which case the passenger was 
sure that, upon reaching the bottom, coach, horses and men would 




MONTGOMERY STREET, SAX FIJAXCISCO, JULY -I, 18G5. 

not be worth twenty-five cents a bushel! Tossed about in the 
bounding vehicle, he assured the driver that such haste was 
unnecessary, that half an hour sooner or later would make no 
material difference. 

* Keep your seat., Mr. Greeley,' replied the imperturbable Monk, 
with a fresh crack of the whip — * keep your seat ; I'll get 3'ou to 
Placerville in time !' 

Through that overruling Providence which cares for the care- 



SS4: THRILLING RIDE DOWN THE SIERRAS. [1865. 

less, the journey was accomplished in safety. But the fanciful 
legend so pleased certain Californians, that they presented Monk 
with a handsome gold watch, bearing the inscription : ' Keep 
your seat, Mr, Greeley — I'll get you to Placerville in time.' 

One night afterward when Monk's coach was late — for these 
stages run by time-table — he drove very hard, to tlie terror of a 
self-important judicial personage who vainly expostulated again 
and again ; and at last with pompous gravity, thundered : 

' I will have you discharged before the week is out. Do you 
know who I am sir?' 

' Oh, yes I' replied Monk, ' perfectly well. But I am going to 
take this coach into Carson City on time if it kills every one-horse 
judge in the State of California!' 

Now, the broad, winding roads are beautifully smooth, and in 
summer sprinkled from carts for sixty miles to keep down the 
all-enveloping dust. The carts are supplied from great wooden 
water-tanks two or three miles apart. 

Down the narrow, winding shelf-road our horses went leaping 
at a sharp gallop. It is a thrilling ride ; for, at many points, a 
divergence of six inches from the track would send the coach 
rolling from five hundred to a thousand feet down the mountain, 
into the foaming stream-bed of some yawning canyon. Here is 
the ideal of staging. For weeks afterward, one's blood bounds at 
the memory of its whirl and rush. Twenty-four on the coach, 
with six horses, gallo])ing down the Sierra Nevadas, along a wind- 
ing, narrow, dizzy road, at twelve miles an hour I It is swift as 
Sheridan's Ride and stirring as the Charge of the Six Hundred. 

The track was half covered with great California freight wag- 
ons. One carries from six to ten tons, and is drawn by ten or 
twelve mules, each bearing on his saddle four tinkling bells. Yery 
striking Avas the skill and coolness of our driver, as we rolled on 
our winding way, among these long teams and ponderous wagons. 
With perfect confidence and nicest calculation, he whirled us 
around sharp corners and through gaps between the freighters and 
the precipice, barely wide enough for our wheels. With him, 
driving long ago ceased to be an experimental accomplishment, 
and became one of the exact sciences. 

We passed in sight of the peak immortalized by Fremont's bum- 



I 




J i; 



i'OWX TIIK SIERRA XKVADAS, IN 1SG5. Page 3S4 



1865.] REACHINa THE LOCOMOTIVE AGAIX. 385 

ble-bee; and rode along the foot of a granite wall, thirteen hundred 
feet high, so upright that from the summit one might have dropped 
an apple upon our heads. We dined at Straw-Berry station, 
which commemorates, not the fruit but, a pioneer named Berry, 
who used to sell straw for hay to the early Washoe pilgrims until 
they gave him the patronymic of ' Old Straw-Beny.' 

Among the beauties and wonders which feasted our eyes, was 
one striking scene. Fifteen hundred feet below us glittered a sil- 
ver-bright section of the American river. Hills clothed with pines 
and firs, and green with delicious grass, sloped down to it on all 
sides with perfect S3nnmetry. It was the rarest little picture in 
a frame of unrivaled verdure. 

Early in the evening we reached Placerville, having ridden 
seventy-two miles in seven hours, including all stoppages. How 
little we comprehend life's common beauties and blessings! In 
186-4 when I escaped from Salisbury, after twenty months spent in 
rebel prisons, every-day comforts, pure water, untainted air, clean 
clothing and wholesome food seemed the most extravagant of lux- 
uries. So, after our long ride over mountain and desert, these 
pleasant valley-homes, with trees, and flowers and festooning vines 
were wondroasly beautiful. The reception to Mr. Colfax seemed 
to come straight from the heart ; and for my own part, like the 
comedian, never was I treated so well — nor so often. 

Placerville, among the western foot-hills of the Sierras, is a 
pleasant town of three or four thousand inliabitants, which formerly 
had an immense trade in suppl3nng the mines. 

The next morning, a final ride of nine miles landed us at Shin- 
kle Spring beside the enormous freight-depot of the Sacramento 
Valley and Placerville Railroad. After two thousand miles of 
stage-coaching, here was the locomotive again ! From the bot- 
tom of my heart I felt like embracing or, at the very least, apos- 
trophizing it. 

In two hours the iron horse took us to Sacramento, the capital 
of the State. The first gold discoveries were made near Placerville; 
but almost simultaneous!}'- gold was found on the ranch of John 
A. Sutter, a Swiss gentleman who in 1839 had settled three miles 
from the present city of Sacramento. When Humboldt visited 
California in 1803, he predicted that precious metals would be 



3S6 SACRAMENTO — ARKIVAL IN SAN FRANCISCO. [1865. 

found near the surface. But the first discoveries were made upon Sut- 
ter's claim in 1848. The news spread like wild-fire. Settlers poured 
in and destroyed Sutter's crops, stole his horses and killed his cattle. 
But their recklessness did not prevent him from exercising great 
kindness and humanity toward all the sick and suffering ; and 
many a pioneer yet remembers him gratefully. He still resides 
upon his old claim — a large Mexican grant to which our Govern- 
ment has tardily confirmed his title. 

Sacramento is at the head of tide-water on the Sacramento river, 
one hundred and twenty miles above the mouth. Its history is a 
chapter of moving accidents. Again and again it was destroyed 
by conflagration and submerged by freshets ; and more than once 
schooners sailed through the principal streets. A friend assured 
me that one night, upon returning home in a boat, he found a 
cow in his drawing-room, and tied her to the hall banister, lest 
the flood should take her up stairs before morning. Levees now 
guard the city from overflow, and the grade is being changed to 
afford sure and permanent protection. The well-shaded city, 
though intensely hot in summer, is agreeable, and contains much 
wealth and culture. A cottonwood which had grown to a foot in 
diameter in seven years from the seed, was pointed out to us. 
We found one of the proprietors of the leading daily journal an 
old typo from the Tribune office. 

The summit-line of the Sierras at the nearest point is seventy- 
five miles east of the town. But in winter the snow-capped moun- 
tains can be seen from the capital stretching two hundred miles 
from north to south. 

After spending a few agreeable hours in Sacramento, we em- 
barked on the steamer Crysopolis, much like the Long Island 
Sound boats, built in California, elegantly furnished, and two 
hundred and fifty feet in length. Here we lost sight of the 
snowy mountains, which had not been out of our view for many 
hours at once since we first saw them, fifteen hundred miles back, 
before reaching Denver. At midnight, we were looking out upon 
the great Pacific, listening to its low voice of infinite lamentation. 

On the first day of July ended our journey across the continent. 
We were in San Francisco in season to witness the celebration of 
*the Fourth.' It was very spontaneous and enthusiastic. All 



1865.] A STARTLING CATALOGUE OF EVENTS. 387 

the tlioroLigbfores were gay with flags, and Montgomery street, 
the Broadway of the city, was a deluge of tri-colored waves. 
An enormous arch was built across it, bearing the names of 
every State in the Union, and portraits of Washington and Lin- 
coln recognizable a quarter of a mile away. There was a warm 
controversy about permitting negroes to join in the processsion, 
which at last resulted in the conclusion that as two hundred thou- 
sand of them had fought, and twenty-eight thousand died, in the 
military service of the republic, they had some vested rights in the 
national holida3\ The prejudice against color, always incredibly 
strong in all the mining States and Territories, wus now per- 
ceptibly ameliorating. 

Soon after us arrived from New York the new steamer Colo- 
rado of the Pacific Mail Line, after a vox'age of ninety days arouna 
the Horn. The steamers for the smooth Pacific are built so large 
and fragile, as to render even their single voyage down the Atlantic 
perilous. In making the trip they stop at a few ports on the 
east coast of South America, pass through the straits ot MageL 
Ian with their magnificent scenery, and touch at two or three 
points on the Pacific side. Thirty excursion passengers came on 
the Colorado. One, Fred. Billings, a San Francisco pioneer, soft, 
ened the asperities of the trip by bringing a new milch cow foi tht. 
benefit of the morning coffee. 

At Callao Peru, the party were hungry for home intelligence. 
They had not heard a word since leaving New York, when Grant 
was still fighting it out on that line. Mr. Billings asked the first 
Yankee he met on the plank : 

' "What is the news from the United States?' 

Slowly removing his cigar, the stranger replied with genuine 
American nonchalance, reciting the stupendous events in a tone 
as monotonous as if reading a washing-list: 

' Kichmond is taken ; Lee has capitulated ; Johnston has sur- 
rendered ; President Lincoln has been assassinated ; and Jeflf. 
Davis has been caught in his wife's petticoats !' 

The listener stood speechless at the startling catalogue! 

The sharp San Francisco winds from the sea proved unfavorable 
to a lingering lung- weakness, which clung to me in memory of 
Castle Thunder and Libby Prison. So I retreated to the interior, 



388 



DELIGHTFUL DAYS IN PLACERVILLE. [1865. 



spending a few delightful days with friends in Placerville. Eve> 
ning's quiet was broken only by the drowsy tinkling of cow-bells, 
and every morning the song of the oriole poured in at my open 
window. The oleander bloomed upon the porch, and the garden 
air was fragrant with rose and fuchsia, honeysuckle and heliotrope, 
nasturtium and sweet verbena. It was only the first week of July ; 
but strawberries, (the second crop — the same vines produce four or 




A GROUP OF CELESTIALS. 



five times a year,) raspberries, blackberries, cherries, plums, apri- 
cots, figs, early peaches, pears, apples and grapes were abundant. 

My friend's garden of one acre produced two tons of j^eaches, 
thirty barrels of apples, and grapes and berries whose name was 
legion. One peach was eighteen inches in circumference; and the 
trees bear in two years from the seed. Irrigation — two square 
inches of water running constantly — cost him thirty dollars for the 
season. Only ten years before he began to redeem his garden from 
the barrenness of a parched hill-side. 

This is the rare charm of California: its unequaled capacity for 



18G5.J THE RARE CHARM OF CALIFORNIA. 389 

fruit ; its kindly soil, hiding the pleasant homes in rich trees, 
flowers and vines. Its towns and hamlets, quite free from the 
bare naked aspect common to new countries, look as if they had 
been settled for two generations. What other region thus com- 
bines tropical productions with a temperate climate ? Where else 
grow fig, almond, olive, orange and pomegranate, side by side with 
pear, plum, peach, apple and cherry? 

There are fifty thousand Chinese upon the Pacific coast, scat- 
tered through the large towns and mining regions. They are en- 
gaged in mining, gardening, horticulture, peddling fruit, fish and 
vegetables, and as nurses, waiters and cooks. They make nine- 
tenths of the cigars, do nearly all the laundry business, cultivate 
several great vineyards, are operatives in the woolen foctories, and 
thousands are day laborers npon the Pacific railroad, swarming 
among the Sierras like flies upon a hone3^comb. Some are hetivy 
merchants, large importers of teas, silks, opium, sugar and rice, 
noted for correctness and fair-dealing. They settle all money dis- 
putes among themselves, never appealing to the courts. They 
have a novel bankru23tcy practice. On the last day of the year, 
the Chinaman who is unable to meet his obligations pays the 
largest per centage he can, declaring his inabilit\^ to do more. On 
New Year's morning his creditors forgive him, embrace him, and 
declare him ' free of the books.' Afterward, if able, he cancels 
the debt, from pride, not obligation. 

On the lower coast, they are extensively engaged in fishing, 
shipping the product of their labors to San Francisco and China. 
As house-servants they are excellent. Every Celestial in the 
United States, according to his geographical origin, belongs to one 
of the six Chinese companies, whose head-quarters are in San 
Francisco. In sickness and health they exercise a paternal disci- 
pline over him. Persons desiring servants, procure them from 
one of these companies, who warrant them for twelve months; 
will replace them if they run away or prove unsatisfactory, and 
insure their conviction in the courts if they are guilty of crime. 
Filth and petty larcenies are the chief offenses to be charged 
against them. On the other hand, they are quiet, temperate, ingen- 
ious, frugal and industrious. They make sad work of speaking 
English ; add double e to words ; change r to I and v to h. ' Want 



890 CHINAMEN ON THE PACIFIC COAST. [1865. 

washee?' asks John Chinaman. ' Washee shirtee bellee goodee. 
Only two bittee.' In a few large towns they have religious tem. 
pies. Their chief deity is called ' Josh.' In a violent quarrel 
between a Chinaman and a Jew, the former wrathfully said: 
'Oh, yesee; I knowee you — you killee Melican man's Josh !' 
On our soil they take no root; bring few women save prosti. 
tutes ; import from home their food, of which rice is the chief 
staple ; send home their money ; send home even their dead, em- 
balmed, to rest in the familv dwellin2;s of their far, twilight land, 

' I/O 7 O 7 

nursery of the human race, where the Orient joins the Occident. 

Industrious and frugal, serene and silent under heavy taxes and 
frequent kicks, poor John Chinaman puts money in his purse and 
revels in ilii-t and degradation. In the mines, gleaning only where 
the white man has reaped, at the year's end his is the larger 
'pill'.' "Wlu-n he finds a rich lead, by mysterious but invariable 
coincidence it belongs to some American — inexorable policeman, 
who bids Johnny ' Alove on.' The divine right of numbers and 
of race is against him. Perfect in imitation, where female labor is 
scarce he proves unrivaled at nursing, cooking, washing and iron- 
ing. Babies intrusted to him he dandles with so much caution 
and tenderness, that all the maternal instinct must lurk somewhere: 
under his long pig-tail, in his yellow face, or moony eyes. My 
friend had a masculine domestic named Afoy, who scrubbed 
floors, washed dishes and cooked dinners with grave and delib- 
erate fidelity. He characterized me as the ' Whong-ti,' which he 
averred to be the pure Celestial for ' Big man — heap big man !' 
I half suspect that he was a solemn wag and that literally it means: 
' Humbug! Heap humbug!' 

I went to look at hjalraulic mining, near Placerville. ' Coon 
Hill,' originally a mound of many acres, bearing a settlement of 
five hundred houses, is almost washed away by the miners. A 
little, ragged section of earth, one hundred and twenty feet high 
■ — its brown dirt-walls broken by a stratum of yellowish marl — 
is all that remains of the hill, rock-ribbed and ancient as the sun. 
One workman stands at the top, directing a tiny rill which comes 
pouring over the edge, cutting the earth into perpendicular slices. 
The rest are at the bottom. Water is brought down to them 
through a cast-iron pipe fi'om a neighboring summit. At the crest 



1865.] 



AMOXG THE nVDRAULIC MIXtliS, 



391 



each Stream is two feet square ; at the bottom it passes through 
two pipes of three-inch hose. The condensation and the fall, of 
nn)i-e than one hundred feet, give it tremendous force. These 
slender streams directed against the upright banlc three hundred 























V 



-AN^^^I^': 



-7 




yaids away, send 
vast clouds of 
cai'th and bowl- 
ders flvin"' in all 
directions, bore 
into the compact 
gravel like huge 
augurs and pene- 
trate narrowest crevices of the rock, soon loosenini? it and brinmnfj 
it down in fragments twice as large as flour-barrels. 

At the bottom, two laborers in India-rubber coats and leggings 



llVUiiALLH; iUNlNU. 



392 THE WONDEKFUL POWER OF WATER. [1865. 

Stand in water up to the thighs, clearing away the debris. The 
stream carries off the dirt and stones with great rapidity ; but they 
toil with picks and crow-bars to assist the heaviest rocks into the 
flume. This is a wooden trough three feet in diameter, witli sharp 
descent, where all the waters gather in a boiling, rushing torrent 
which washes away the earth and bowlders, while the sinking 
gold is caught by slats on the bottom. Once in the flume, a rock 
which almost fills it is borne along like a cork. With almost 
every stroke of the pick the laborers glance up uneasily at the 
quivering earth-wall, which sometimes tumbles unexpectedly, 
causing fatal accidents. When it is about to fall unobserved, the 
pipe-men whose position is farther away, shout: ' Look out!' and the 
workmen spring back, while great masses of earth and rock come 
crashing down. Thev labor in the water twelve hours dailv for 
three dollars, boarding themselves. B}^ day their clothing is never 
dr}^ ; yet they arc said to remain healthy though prematurel}^ old. 

The force of the water is wonderful. One of these three-inch 
streams would extinguish a conflagration, dwelling and all, in the 
briefest period, knocking down a brick building like a child's cob- 
house. At ten feet from the nozzle it would cut through a man 
as if he were tissue paper ; at forty feet it would crush him to a 
jelly. The proprietor assured me that with these three little 
pipes he could cut down and wash away a section of hill twenty 
feet long, twenty wide and two hundred high, in twelve hours. 
The water cost him thirty dollars per day. No gold is found for 
the first hundred feet below the surface, but between that depth 
and the bed-rock the dirt often proves very rich. Nearly five 
millions of dollars have been taken out in the vicinity since 1849. 

It was a novel scene — the dirty cascade pouring down over the 
top, slicing the hill as with a knife ; the glittering, gauzy streams 
darting to the earth-wall, raising a cloud of dirt like the smoke 
from a field-piece, and knocking out huge rocks, to fall and bound 
like foot-balls; the serene superintendent directing the whole; 
the men in the water with browned faces, long beards and pipes, 
glancing up nervously at the Damocles-wall ; and the great hill 
melting to liquid and passing away through a wooden trough ! It 
showed the miraculous power of water in changing the surface of 
the earth. 



1865.] WAKM CLIMATE OF PACIFIC COAST. 393 



CHAPTER XXXIIT. 

On our west coast, the isothermal line bends abruptly northward. 
San Francisco, in the latitude of Kichraond, has the climate of 
Savannah. Victoria, on Vancouver Island, far north of Quebec 
is as warm as New York. In Portland, Oregon, roses grow in 
open air throughout the year. Walla Walla, in Washington Ter- 
ritory, latitude forty-six degrees north, corresponds in temperature 
to Washington City, in thirty-nine ; Clark's Fork, Idaho, in forty- 
eight, to St. Joseph, Missouri, in forty; Bitter Koot Valley, 
Montana, in forty-six, to Philadelphia, in forty. 

All points on the Pacific slope are as warm as those from six to 
ten degrees further south on the Atlantic side. This difference is 
sometimes imputed to the numberless hot springs among the head- 
waters of the Columbia — indeed, everywhere from the Rockv 
Mountains to the Pacific. But the more prevalent theory refers 
it to a current of warm water and air from the Indian ocean, strik- 
ing the coast- at an acute angle, near San Fi'ancisco, and thence 
flowing northward. The Coast Ransre and Cascade mountains 
arrest and condense the clouds, causing the winters of western 
Oregon, in which the sun seldom shines on the evil or on the 
good, and the rain steadily falls both upon the just and theunjiTst. 
Satirical Californians call their northern neighbors ' Web-feet.' 

The stage route from Oroville, (railroad terminus seventy miles 
north of Sacramento,) to Portland, Oregon, is six hundred and 
forty-two miles long. In summer the trip consumes less than a 
week. In winter, stage-travelers pay their fares for the privilege 
of being jolted in mud-wagons, or dislocated on horseback, or 
mired on foot. Then the trip seems interminable, and there are 
rumors of passengers who have died of old age upon the road. 



894 SCENE OF A CALIFORNIA STORY. [1865. 

But starting on the thirteenth of July we found the summer 
journey speedy and agreeable. At Grass Valley, in addition to 
the warm reception accorded him, the programme required Mr. 
Colfax to kiss a bevy of eight or ten bright-eyed young ladies 
He gave the greeting with that zeal and resignation which he 
brings to all the duties and cares of public life. 

Near Marysville we passed the little village of Yuba Dam, the 
scene of an early California story, which Harper^s Monthly inrst 
made public. It avers that on a quiet Sunday morning a traveler 
reached the three little houses which comprise the town. 

'My friend,' he asked of a citizen, 'what village is this?' 

' Yuby Dam.' 

The stranger, shocked at such impoliteness and profanity, put 
spurs to his horse. At the door of the next cabin stood a decent 
housewife, broom in hand. He repeated the inquiry' : 

' Madam will you please tell me the name of this village?' 

' Yub}^ Darn.' 

Still more scandalized, the interrogator rode on until he met a 
little bov plaving in the street. Here at least he mii^ht obtain a 
})roper answer : 

'My son, what is this place called?' 

' Yuby Dam !' 

' Heavens !' exclaimed the astounded stranger as he galloped out 
of the town. * What a place is this, where even the women and 
children swear — and on Sunday too!' 

At Chico we encountered General John Bidwell, Cong:ressional 
representative from northern California. He resided here ujion 
his ranch of twenty-thousand acres long before the coiuitry av;;s 
settled by Americans, and is still one of the most extensive farmers 
in the United States. 

The enormous corn, green meadows, and great fields of stubble 
with barley stacks and wheat sheaves began to wear the parched, 
fading look of the rainless months. We passed the grave of a rich 
citizen, buried upon his own farm, whose monument bears the 
inscription, written by himself: 

'Thomas M. Wright, lived and died an atheist, fearing no hell, hoping for no heaven 
--a friend and advocate of mental liberty.' 



1865.] 



THE WIDOW OF JOHN BROWN. 



395 



At midnight we passed through the little town of Red Bluffs, 
Tehama (lowlands), county, head of navigation on the Sacramento 
river. Here lives the widow of old John Brown, wholly depend- 
ent upon her own labor. Her daughters teach in the public 
schools, while she ministers as nurse and physician among neigh- 
boring families, by whom she is greatly loved. 




This sparsely-settled mountain region abounds in tall pines, with 
long hairy strands of brown Spanish moss pendent from their 
boughs, and straggling white-onks festooned with misletoe of vivid 
green, yellowing as death a{)proaches. This parasite, absorbing 
the sap of the tree, soon kills it, and then itself perishes. 

Eighty miles to the east of our road, Shasta, one of the highest 
California peaks, northern monarch of the Sierra Nevadas, rears 
its broken crest fourteen thousand feet above sea-level. Its 
summit, reached with difficulty, commands a grand, inspiring 
view. Among its eternal snows gushes a boiling-hot sulphur 
spring. Shasta is an isolated, extinct volcano — a mountain of 
dazzling white, beyond green, wooded valleys and the purple hills 
of the horizon. It is about one thousand feet higlier than Pike's 
Peak and more impressive, because the contrasting vegetation is 
warmer and richer. 



896 SPELLING 'YREKA BAKERY' BACKWARD. [1865. 

The hills abound in glossy evergreen oaks, whose long branches 
droop to the ground. The exquisite mountain lily, of bluish 
white, with stems three or four feet high and blossoms somewhat 
like those of the peerless water lily, also enriches the landscape. 

Yreka, the northern settlement of California, is a mountain 
town thirty-five hundred feet above the sea. It is the site of 
considerable placer mining. The city and the gold-diggers are 
supplied with' water by a canal one hundred miles long. The 
name — pronounced ' Tl yreka' — is derived from a tribe of Indians. 
Here a pioneer baker placed over his door the sign : ' Yreka 
Bakery;' and puzzled strangers were often invited to try the 
experiment of spelling the two words backward. 

Crossing a little stream of the Siskiyou mountains, three hun- 
dred miles north of Sacramento, we were in Oregon. From the 
summit, five thousand five hundred feet above the sea, we saw 
Pilot Mountain, named by Fremont, and crowned by an enormous 
granite bowlder, apparently a mile in diameter. Descending, we 
found a changed vegetation, new wild flowers, and abundance of 
oak, maple and madrona or mountain laurel. The latter is an 
evergreen of rarest beauty, sometimes seventy feet high, with 
vivid, shining leaves and bark which deadens and dro])s off yearly, 
leaving smooth stem and branches of delicate pale red. 

In general, southern Oregon is little inhabited, and its sterile 
mountains are densely timbered. But our road threads lovely 
valleys of tall timothy and golden wheat, among dazzling white 
farm-houses, their porches and verandas shaded with locusts and 
willows and flanked by immense barns for the long winters ; 
young orchards heavy with ripening plums and pears, apples and 
peaches; clear rills which pour down the lull-sides to the settlers' 
doors; log school-houses, 'Where young Ambition climbs his little 
ladder, and boyish Genius plumes his half-fledged wings.' 

In passing from one to another of these narrow valleys, we cross 
abrupt wooded mountains and go through placer gold-diggings. 
The gold mines of the young State have already contributed more 
than twelve millions of dollars to the treasury of the world. But 
our richest mineral yields in the Northwest are likely to come from 
the silver of Oregon and Idaho. Treasure to the amount of two 
million dollars per month sometimes passes down the Columbia 



1865.] REMINISCENCES OF GENERAL GRANT. 897 

from these newly-opened regions. It has been well suggested that, 
as the entrance to San Francisco bay is called the Golden Gate, 
the mouth of the Columbia should be named the Silver Gate. 

At one dwelling an inftxnt grizzly bear, aged ten weeks and 
weighing two hundred and fifty pounds, is tied to a stake. 
Checking him with a cart-whip when too playful, the owner frolics 
fearlessly with young Bruin. When Lola Montez resided in Cali- 
fornia she also kept a grizzly as a household pet. 

At Jacksonville, Jackson count}^, we learn that a fortunate 
miner has taken out two hundred and eight dollars within the last 
twenty-four hours. The placer diggings of the county yield 
fifty thousand dollars monthl3\ 

At Rocky Point we cross Rogue river upon an excellent toll- 
bridge. A rival bridge-owner, three miles below, made his struc- 
ture free; and for a time took all the travel. But this original 
Jacob bought the land on Evans creek, six miles to the eastward 
and running parallel with the river, at its only fordable point; 
fenced up the ford and then bridged the creek, charging toll there 
for both streams. Discomfited by the shrewd maneuver, the rival 
retired from the contest. Some of the noble fir trees are one 
hundred and fifty feet high and three feet in diameter. 

There are many local histories and traditions. For a number 
of years, Ulysses S. Grant, then a captain in the armv, was 
stationed in Oregon. The pioneers give interesting reminiscences 
of him. His life was commonplace and unnoticeable. He was a 
reticent, undemonstrative, unambitious officer, habitually addicted 
to conviviality. How strange are the vagaries of destiny ! How 
few men find the one place and opportunity for showing their highest 
capacity ! But for the great rebellion. Grant had lived and died 
only to be remembered as an ordinary, silent, honest, infiin- 
try captain, of moderate abilities. But for the national contest 
about the extension of slavery, Abrahatn Lincoln had been known 
onl}' as a country lawyer, with unusual capacity for convincing 
juries, and telling droll, 'pat' stories. 

The Pacific coast is the school from which our best officers 

graduated. Here Sherman lived for years. Here Jo Hooker, 

when a captain, constructed a military road over which our coach 

rolls to-day. It passes Leland post-office, Josephine county, on 

'id 



398 NOTEWORTHY POINTS ON THE ROAD. [1865. 

Grave creek — all commemorating Josephine Leland, a beautiful 
girl, who died of fever, and whose body Indians disinterred and 
mutilated. Seven of the savage criminals were afterward killed 
and buried near the outraged grave. 

Another stream is called ' Jump-off-Jo creek.' During the 
Indian war of 1854, General Jo Lane was pursued bj a red foo 
in a ride for life; when his men shouting, 'Jump off, Jo!' he 
obeyed, and was saved. 

We pass 'Six-bit ranch,' perpetuating the eccentricity of nn 
old settler. Like Mrs. John Gilpin, though on pleasure he was 
bent, he had a frugal mind. Just as an Indian was about to be 
hanged for murder, he mounted the scaffold and dunned the 
doomed man for six bits ( seventy-five cents.) 

At the next dining station we found the Tribune^ Independent^ 
and A tlaniic Monthly^ upon our host's parlor table, and of course 
intelligent, agreeable society in his household. 

In Douglas count}'', self-invited guests, we breakfasted with 
Jesse Applegate, a thoroughly original and entertaining pioneer — • 
a man of genius, too proud to practice the politician's arts, and 
therefore in private life. He came here in 1843, and was most 
influential in shaping the political character of Oregon. He 
asserts that the Tribune^ wliich, before the overland telegraph, cir- 
culated here more widely than an}- other journal, home or distant, 
saved the State to freedom and to loyalty. Upon his farm and 
the adjacent ones of his children, embracing three thousand acres, 
Mr. Applegate sustains one hundred cattle and one thousand 
sheep. He has sold eight thousand dollars worth of beeves in a 
single year. His rick contains one hundred and twenty tons of 
hay, already kept three years for his sheep, through winters so 
mild as not to require it. 

At last we descended from the summit of the Calapooya 
mountains into the great Wallamet * valley, fifty miles by one 
hundred — the garden of Oregon, and containing half of its 
entire population. To one coming from dreary Nevada deserts, 
or California fields dull and withered in the rainless months, 

* Often improperly spcllpd TVillamette. It is an Indian word of the same class with 
Walla "Walla. The ' a' is broad and the accent upon the first syllable. 



1865.] PLENTIFULNESS OF BABIES. 399 

very delightful are its deep forests, ricli meadows and groves 
of drooping oaks — its pleasant homes, embowered in green 
— its bright, flowing river darkened with slender pines. Except- 
ing possibly the Indian Territory south of Kansas, it is the richest 
farmino^ resrion of the United States ; thoui^h the fathomless mud 
and endless rain of the winters are serious drawbacks. The 
Eogue river valley, though smaller, is nearly as fruitful. 

Oregon is prolific in grain, grass, fruit and timber. As in all 
new countries, the bountifulness of Nature is most strikingly 
exhibited in human life. Old communities are full, and children 
comparatively rare. New countries must be peopled, and children 
abound. About the log houses everywhere on our frontier, from 
six to a dozen white-headed babies attest the fact. Oregon is 
specially blest. A Marion county lady at sixty years of age, 
became the mother of an infant. Another had two children born 
within ten months. 

The former United States law regulating public lands in this 
State, gave three hundred and twent}' acres to an unmarried 
settler, and six hundred and forty to him who had a wife. As 
the young Territory had five times more men than women, girls 
married very young; and some became mothers at thirteen and 
fourteen. 

• Salem, the pleasant capital of the State, is a village of two 
thousand people, on the Wallamet. Uere we take a little steamer 
for Oregon City, where we debark to ride a mile upon a wooden 
railroad, past broken picturesque falls, with eternal clouds of mist 
winding across the broad river. The silvery water contrasts im- 
pressively with the deep gloom of envii'oning rocks and somber 
hills. Near the falls is a great brick woolen factory, the fourth 
in the State. 

Below the cascade, a second steamer waits to bear us a few miles 
fuither, to Portland, the metropoHs of Oregon, ^[any attempts 
have been made to found a city at the mouth of the Columbia, 
which seemed the natural point for a commercial center. But 
those mvsterious laws which determine the sites of cities, vetoed 
the resolution and established the coming town on the Wallamet, 
twelve miles above its junction with the Columbia and a hundred 
and thirty above the Columbia's mouth. 



400 



PORTLAND STREET AND RIVER SCENES. [1865 




PORTLAND OREGON. ON THE FOURTH OP JULY, 1865. 



We found Portland a pleasant, straggling, growing city of five 
thousand people, on the smooth, glassy transparent river, broken 
just above by a mid-ehannel island, of vivid, drooping foliage. 

The town is in- 
closed on the 
three land sides 
by an amphithe- 
ater of symmetric 
hills, covered 
with tall, dark 
pines. At the 
great wharves 
were river steam- 
boats, sailing ves- 
sels from San 
Francisco, Sand- 
wich Islands, 
China and the 
Atlantic coast; 
and ocean steamers which ply to Vancouver Island and to San 
Francisco. On the lower business streets, ample brick blocks; 
above, graceful churches, school-houses and spacious frame dwell- 
ings, scattering into an irregular fringe of little cottages and rough 
cabins far up among hill-side stumps. 

The largest and most enthusiastic concourse of citizens we had 
seen since leaving New York was waiting to receive Mr. Colfax. 
The Stars and Stripes everywhere flying ; streets filled with busy, 
intelligent faces; fine horses with light carriages trotting up the 
macadamized road along the river toward a delightful subui-ban 
resort known as the White House. Driving is the pastime of the 
Pacific coast, and horse-flesh its ruling passion. 

Portland has a heavy trade, and is full of thrift and enterprise. 
It was founded in 1845, by two wandering Yankees, Prettigrow 
from Portland, and Lovejoy from Boston. Each desired to give 
it the name of his birthplace; and they finally decided the vexed 
question by tossing up the only coin in their possession — a rusty 
copper. Heads won ; wherefore the metrojjolis of the North Pa- 
cific is Portland, not Boston ! Having no great city within seven 



1865.] EXCURSION UP THE COLUMBIA. 401 

hundred miles, it is the grand supply-point for Oregon "Wash- 
ington and Idaho. Just before our arrival, a corner lot fifty feet 
by a hundred, sold for twenty-thousand dollars, gold. 

With a party of Portlanders, we made an excursion up the 
Columbia, starting upon the fine steamer New World. She used 
to run upon the Hudson; but through debt and ill-luck fell into 
the clutches of the New York sheriff. Her captain, having 
secretly provisioned her for a long voyage, seduced that functionary 
into a little ride down the harbor; carried him beyond his own 
jurisdiction; and then offered him the option of going ashore or a 
free passage to California. The outwitted sheriff landed; but the 
New Woi-ld conthiued around the Horn, to the hopeless bereave- 
ment of her creditors. 

Old geographers called this stream Oregon — ' the river of the 
west;' and the great State still fittingly bears that earlier and 
better name. The Columbia is six miles wide at its mouth, and 
one mile wide a hundred miles above. 

Clear, blue, glassy, dotted with little islands of greenest toliage, 
and broken by dangerous rapids wliich make steameis sIkikc like 
rocking-chairs, the Columbia is unrivaled upon our continent, in 
grandeur and magnitude. The Hudson no more compares with it 
than does the Arkansas with the Hudson. 

Beside it rise grand abrupt mountains, deeply wooded with firs, 
crowned with stupendous rocks, carpeted by yellow moss, girdled 
with strands of snowy cloud, and streaked with water-falls of 
perfect whiteness. 

Cape Horn is a columnar wall of basaltic stone, at some points 
seven hundred feet in hight — the Palisades on a larger scale. 
Over many vast upright rocks little fidls take bold leaps, dis- 
solving into spray before reaching the bottom. Where the 
steep bank of velvet grass and pine-crowned rocks is one-third 
of a mile high, Horse-tail Fall, softened by delicate mist, hangs like 
an exquisite strand of snowy hair, broken only once in a descent 
of three hundred and sixty feet, 'a strip of silver in a fringe of 
green.' Castle Rock, a solitary basaltic dome surrounded by 
water and quite isolated from the shore, rises grand and gloomy 
for eight hundred feet. Tall pines find root among its impercep- 
tible fissures and on its bare summit. 



402 



LINCOLN, GRANT AND SHERIDAN. 



[1865. 



Here we reach the Lower Cascades, impassable for boats, and 
take a steam railway along the rugged bank for five miles. 

Our train passes a little log block house where in 1856 Indians 
beseiged a party of white men for two days. They were finall}^ 
routed in a dashing charge by a modest young lieutenant of the 
United States army, whose name was Phil, Sheridan. At the 
outbreak of the rebellion he confidentially assured a friend of his 
determination to win a captain's commission or die in the attempt I 




SHKKIDAX'S FIRST BATTLE-GROUKD, COLUMBIA KIVER, OREGON. 

Lincoln thought it would fill the measure of bis wildest ambition 
to be made vice-president! Grant only aspired to the city couwcil 
of Galena, that he might have a new sidewalk from the depot! 
Sheridan merely hoped to become captain of a company ! 

'How little do we know of what we are, 
How less, of what we may be 1' 

After leaving the railway we took the new steamer Oneonta, 
built on the ground, and elegant!}^ furnished. She is two hundred 
feet long, and cost eight}^ thousand dollars. Upon her we steamed 
up the current for five hours, to the flourishing town of Dalles, 
the third in the State, containing twenty-five hundred inhabitants. 



1865.] CURIOUS DALLES OF THE COLUMBIA. 403 

Here are the second impassable rapicls, and the second railroad 
of fourteen miles, built at heavy expense, and accompanied by a 
telegraph wire. Here for ten miles are the Dalles (flag-stones) of 
the Columbia, worthy of the prominence given them by Wash- 
ington Irving, Lewis and Clark, and other early writers, as the 
most noteworthy feature of all this curious region. The river, 
above and below so broad' and glassy, is here of fathomless dej)th, 
compressed into one-tenth its usual limits; and even this nar- 
row stream is broken by scores of dark-brown rocks. Boiling, 
swelling and hissing, the torrent rushes through its close, tortuous 
confines, lashing the smooth rocks in foam}?- passion — a river of 
eddies and troughs, whirlpools and shooting rockets of water, 
beating out its life against prison walls. On the bank, immense 
drifts of sand, white as snow, prove most serious obstructions to 
the locomotive. 

On the flat shore-rocks are the bark lodges of Wascopm Indians ; 
naked children, with stomachs distended like bladders, rolling and 
running in the sand ; filthy, repulsive women, who seem hardly 
members of the human race, bearing bundles of faggots upon their 
heads; and men at the water's edge, spearing savory salmon, often 
weighing twentj'-five pounds each. On the south in full view tow- 
ers Mount Hood, the grandest peak on our continent. 

It is believed that the great basin of the Upper Columbia, con- 
taining four hundred thousand square miles, was once a vast inland 
sea, broken only by a few islands which are now mountain peaks. 
If this theory be true, what resistless floods must have burst 
through the mountain-wall and rolled on to the might}'- ocean ! 

The railway taking us past the rapids leaves us at Celilo, a village 
of a dozen dwellings. On the river bank is the largest warehouse 
in the United States, over eleven hundred feet long, built to 
receive the heavy Idaho freights. 

Here we embark on the Owyhee* another new steamer built 
above these rapids. It is one hundred and twenty feet long, and 
cost thirty-two thousand dollars. 

After a brief rest upon the steamer, Messrs. Colfax and Bross 

* So called from one of the richest mininf;: districts of the United States, in Idaho, 
which originally derived the mellow name from a Sandwich Island. 



404 



A BIT OF ORATORICAL FUN. 



[1865. 



with the Portland friends who accompanied us, returned to Dalles 
to address the assembled citizens on public affairs. Mr. Bowles 
and myself, wearied with the excitement of tj'avel, spent a quiet 
evening upon the little 'Owjhee' in company with Messrs. 
Deady and Read of Portland. Just after we had gone to bed, 
the locomotive whistle announced the return of the company. 




A MIDNIGHT RECEPTION TO SPEAKER COLFAX. 



As Mr. Colfax, 
through the 
entire journey 
had been greet- 
ed with flao-s 
and speeches, 

banquets and brass bands on every conceivable and inconceivj^ 
ble occasion, one of our quartette instantly suggested that ho 
should enjoy the novelty of a reception from his own comrades. 
Enveloping ourselves in sheets, we stepped into the dimly-lighted 
cabin and waited for the arriving orators and listeners. They 
soon came on board, Mr. Colfax, fortunately, at their head. Reach- 
ing our end of the saloon, he was a good deal startled by four 
white, sepulchral figures. Like the Ancient Mariner, almost he 
dreamed that he had died and was a blessed ghost. Apparently 



1865.] NORTHERN PACIFIC RAILROAD WANTED. 405 

bere was a committee of shades about to give him the last reception. 
One of the airy effigies stepping forward, immediately began a 
speech of welcome which at first bewildered and surprised the new- 
comers, but before its close, excited their uproarious laughter. The 
speaker of the House promptly recovered himself; and the moment 
it was ended, made a neat and graceful reph^, abounding in happy 
hits at the friends who welcomed him. Mr. Colfax has been the 
victim of more speeches than any other public man in the nation ; 
but he never assisted at any ceremony so unique and memorable 
as this midnight reception among the forests of the Columbia. 

The next mornino- the Owyhee steamed on. Thus far we 
have sailed up a stream with deep forests of pines, firs and 
cedars — with no branches on the side next to the prevailing 
winds — covering the hills and cliffs. Here is classic ground here : 

' The continuous woods, 
Wliere rolls the Oregon, and hears no sound 
Save its own dashings.' 

But Bryant sang of a past era. Now a tide of commerce and im- 
migration pours through this remote solitude ; and the suiprised 
traveler finds railway carriages and steamers, with the same luxury 
and elegance he is wont to enjoy between Boston and Xew York. 

Above the Dalles the woods disappear ; the banks are smooth, 
hills of velvet grass, without leaf or shrub in the whole range of 
vision. The entire country, watered by the upper Columbia, em- 
bracing eastern Oregon, "Washington, Idaho, and a portion of Mon- 
tana, looks a dreaiy desert ; but its grasses are rich and nutritive. 

Our trip ended at Wright's Ilarbor, one hundred and fifty miles 
above Portland. Steamers run nearly three hundred miles higher 
to impassable rapids ; and even above them a little boat plies on 
the Snake river, in Idaho. But Umatilla is the head of sure navi- 
gation on the Columbia. It might be connected with the head of 
navigation on the Missouri, by railroad of about six hundred niiles. 
Alread}' a short route from Oi-egon to Montana has been opened 
via the Pen d'Oreille lake and river, upon which small steamers are 
plying. 

Here should pass a northern Pacific railroad. The great cereal 
interests of our Northwest, the copper and iron resources of Lake 



406 A COUPLE OF 'little stories.' [1865. 

Superior, the lumber forests of Minnesota, the incalculably rich 
gold and silver mines of Montana and Idaho, and the vast lumber, 
fishing, and mineral interests of Oregon and Washington impera- 
tively require steam communication with both oceans, A northern 
railway line should be inaugurated without delay. 

Two 'little stories' shall close this rambling chapter. A sarcas- 
tic resident was rallying one of my traveling companions on his in- 
ability to drink buttermilk, declaring that no man can be quite 
civilized who does not relish that beverage. Mr, Bowles quietly 
replied : 

' In my section we give the buttermilk to our pigs !' 

At an Oregon farm-house, early one morning, we tapped for ad- 
mission. The door was opened by a girl of fifteen, of whom our 
spokesman asked : 

' Is your father here?' 

'No sir; he is mowing in the field.' 

' Very well ; we will go out to find him and then return and 
breakfast with you.' 

At this unexpected proposition, which was followed by our names, 
the damsel opened wide her two astonished eyes ; but in a moment 
recovering herself, cheerfully acquiesced in the arrangement. Two 
hours later, after the morning meal and a delightful visit, as Mr. 
Colfax shook hands with her at parting, he said : 

' You were a good deal surprised at our inviting ourselves to 
breakfast, were you not?' 
' O, no sir. I was surjDrised ; but not at that.' 

'What then?' 

' At hearing your name.' (Very earnestly.) ' It is not often that 
we see a great man in this country !' 



1865.] A FRONTIER SUPREME COURT. 407 



CHAPTER XXXIV. 

Whex we acquired Oregon it extended north to British Colum- 
bia. But the upper half, through its lumber and fishing interests, 
and its own outlet to the sea — quite distinct from the farming and 
mineral regions of the lower — was cut off and made a separate 
Territorj'. Its resources prove for richer than they promised^. 
And Russian America, added to our area h}^ that absorption which 
must ultimately give us the entire continent, will likewise better 
expectation. American skill and enterprise will develop it; 
American patriotism should name it. One man is commejiiorated 
by an inflmt State; one other ought to be. We have the Terri- 
tory of Washington ; let us have the Territory of Lincoln, 

The first settlers of Oregon crossed the continent through the 
South Pass, in 1839, nine years before the gold discoveries in 
California. The}' were stimulated by the richness and beauty of 
Wallamet valley, whose fame had penetrated even to Missouri and 
Ohio ; and by our national tendency to go to the farthest place. 
They were not equal in intelligence to the pioneers of California 
or of Kansas ; but their histor}' affords striking examples of the 
capacity for self-government among our ' plain people,' — of that 
ingrained respect for law and order and decisions of the majority, 
which ft)rrns the ' bed-rock' of American stability and greatness. 

In early days, the miners of Jacksonville elected an alcalde. 
A part}'' to a contested claim case, thinking himself wronged, 
posted this notice: 'Whereas, the alcalde has given an unjust 
and corrupt decision against me, on Sunday next I shall take 
an appeal to the supreme court.' Sunday saw a hundred miners 
convened, from curiosity to learn what the supreme court 
was. The}' themselves were that august tribunal ! The aggrieved 



408 OREGON PIONEERS GOVERN THEMSELVES. [1865. 

party organized them into a mass meeting ; they re-tried tlie case 
and rendered a verdict reversing the alcalde's decision. All 
acquiesced in this assize of original and final jurisdiction. 

In that remote region, then as far from civilization as the Nile, 
the pioneers found themselves surrounded by hostile Indians, with 
no law for the protection of life and property, and no hope of aid 
from without. The squatters met the emergency by establishing 
a provisional government, which ruled Oregon for eight years. 
Unrecognized by the United States, without any technical legality, 
they framed a constitution, elected legislators, organized courts, 
imposed and collected taxes, coined money, carried on war and 
made peace with the Indians, until 1849, when Congress gave to 
the precocious sister a Territorial organization. The French have 
always claimed to be 'the Great Nation;' but I think we may 
contest the title with them. 

A few specimens of the early money, the ' beaver coin,' are still in 
existence. The little specie brought from the States was inade- 
quate for the business of the young community ; and in the 
absence of money, wheat circulated, a cumbersome legal tender, 
at one dollar per bushel. In this extremity, dies were prepai-ed 
by a blacksmith, and the five-dollar coin made of gold dug from 
the surrounding mountains. It bore the effigy of a beaver, and 
was worth its face at the United States mints. 

At the mouth of the Columbia, Indians still exhibit medals left 
in 1805 by Lewis and Clark, on their exploring tour. It is 
claimed that the Spaniards were the original discoverers of the 
great river. The first American knowledge of it was through 
Captain Robert Gray of Boston, who entered the mouth of the 
unknown, beautiful stream in 1792, and named it from his ship, 
Columbia Rediviva, the first keel which had ever cut its waters. 
He sailed up eighteen miles; and coming down, met Vancouver 
the British explorer, who had ascended one hundred miles from 
the mouth to the present town bearing his name. 

Then as now, the mouth of the stream Avas the terror of navi- 
gators. Gray was nine days in crossing its dangerous bar. In 
1811, the Tonquin, one of John Jacob Astor's fur ships com- 
manded by Captain Thorn, lost eight men endeavoring to pass 
the bar in boats, to reach the site they had selected for Astoria. 



1865.] TERRIBLE REVENGE OX THE SAVAGES. 409 

Afterward, at Vancouver Island, the imprudence of Thorn 
angered a party of Indians who visited the Tonquin to sell furs. 
In the ensuing fierce conflict, the savages killed every man on 
board except Lewis the ship's clerk, an Indian interpreter, and five 
sailors who hid in the cabin. After the Indians had left, the four 
men escaped to the shore; but were all caught and massacred. 
Lewis and the interpreter remained on the vessel and wreaked a 
vengeance worthy of classic ages. They decoyed the Indians 
back again, and while the deck swarmed with savages, fired the 
magazine! The ship was blown to atoms; Lewis and more than 
a hundred natives perished ; but the interpreter was thrown into 
the water unhurt — an almost miraculous escape. 

The earliest white settlers were the Hudson Bay Company, and 
Nathaniel "Wyeth's two overland expeditions from IMassachusetts 
in 1832-3. The Indians still call every American 'a Boston,' and 
all English ' King George's men.' 

Fort Vancouver was the British company's post. Every June 
one of their ships arrived with a year's supply of goods; took 
away the year's accumulation of wheat to Sitka, selling it to the 
Russian government for furs; carried the furs to China, and 
exchanged them for teas and silks ; transported these to London ; 
and then bringing another supply of goods around the Horn, 
again reached Vancouver in June. Thus began the commerce of 
our western coast which, still in its infancy, whitens every sea. 

Pioneers gave glowing accounts of the striking scenery of the 
Rocky Mountains, the beauty of Columbia river, the grandeur of 
the Sierra Nevadas and the isolated peaks of the Northwest; but 
they did not attain wide celebrity until very lately. The warm 
coloring of Albert Bicrstadt found ample room in the rich hues 
of the Pacific coast, and his bold, free pencil, verge enough in the 
stupendous mountains of Colorado, Yosemite valley and Oregon. 
Many brother artists following in his train, have worthily continued 
the work which he most worthily began. But these regions are so 
vast and their scenes of wonder and beauty so man}', that genera- 
tions must pass before the American people will have any adequate 
conception of the great features of their own country. 

The resources of Oregon are rich and varied. Its yield of the 
precious metals is already very heavy. The Santiam gold minesy 



410 



THE RICH RESOURCES OF OREGON. 



[1865. 



a few miles from Salem, seem to equal even the ricli lodes of 
Idaho. Abundant deposits of iron are found within fifteen miles 
of Portland. Some specimens assay sixty per cent, pure metal. 
Wood and coal are plentiful ; and doubtless works will soon be 
erected for the reduction of the ore. The Pacific coast uses seventy 
tons of iron daily; but imports it all from the Atlantic coast, save 
the supply for Vancouver Island which comes from Scotland. 
There are ten large foundries in San Francisco and one in Portland, 
which turn out every machine, from apothecaries' mortars of one 
stamp, to quartz mills of a hundred stamps (the mortar upon a 
large scale, its huge pestles pounding by steam,) from the hand 
pump to the first-class locomotive. 

In addition to iron and gold, 
the State produces silver, copper, 
lead and marble; and exports 
wool, lumber, fish and fruit. 
Sheep-raising is the most lucra- 
tive pursuit. The lumber re- 
sources are varied and boundless. 
Eedwood — a species of cedar, 
often twelve feet in diameter — 
makes the best boards, which, in 
seasoning, shrink only lengthwise. 
The water-power is unsurpassed 
in the world. The apple grows 
in profusion. Essentially a northern fruit, its. flavor here is far 
more pungent than in California. Oregon cider is famous on the 
entire Pacific slope, and. much is shipped around the Horn, to 
New York and Boston. Champagne is a great beverage of the 
west coast; but Mr. Colfax, a total abstinent from boyhood and 
an old worker in the temperance cause, would indulge in nothing 
more ardent than native cider. His long Washington career had 
not even fiimiliarized him with the taste of wine. One evening in 
a San Francisco drawing-room, he was conversing earnestly with 
a gentleman beside him, when our host carefully removed the paper 
from a bottle of sparkling Moselle and neatly substituted the label : 
' Oregon Cider.' Then opening the bottle with considerable dis- 
play, he poured a full goblet and invited the speaker to partake 




ALDERT BIERSTADT. 



1865.] A LITTLE MORE OREGON CIDER. 411 

of bis favorite beverage. Mr. Colfax sipped it with evident relish 
during bis colloquy ; and at last discovering that it was all gone, 
asked : 

'Mr. M. will you give me another glass of that Oregon cider? 
Its flavor is excellent.' 

Grapes, peaches, plums, nectarines, apricots and strawberries 
grow in the Oregon valleys. Fruit trees, two years old, are twice 
as large as in New York and Ohio ; and the average yield of 
wheat to the acre is fifty per cent, greater. Not more than one- 
tenth of the rich Wallainet valley is yet under cultivation. The 
best improved lands command eight to sixteen dollars per acre; 
unimproved, one dollar and twenty cents to five dollars. 

One of the earliest newspapers in Oregon was printed from 
wooden types cut out by hand. The State has now three dailies. 
The Oregonian, the oldest journal, is edited by a gentleman who 
graduated at the Oregon University. It is full of suggestiveness to 
remember that a generation has matured on this far-off coast — to find 
leaders of public opinion born, reared and educated on the soil — 
to hear young men and women who have resided from infancy in 
what nine-tenths of our people regard a wilderness, discuss appre- 
ciatively and critically Emerson and Herbert Spencer, Tliackeray 
and Tennyson, Whittier and Gail Hamilton. 

Some Californians grow satirical upon their ' "Web-foot ' neigh- 
bors, jesting at their lack of enterprise, and averring that the wet 
climate has made them aquatic. The Oregonians retort that if 
slow, they are solvent; that it is better to be cautious than to go 
beyond one's means. Dr. Bellows noted the use of brown sugar in 
their tea. They pithily replied that their sugar was paid for, and 
that he could not accuse them, as he did the Californians, of bor- 
rowing money at three per cent, a month to buy champagne with! 

At one stage station in a beautiful valley, I encountered two 
girls of sixteen and eighteen, with comely faces and neat attire. 
I asked one when her parents came to Oregon ? Sbe replied that 
it was before she could remember. "What State did they come 
from ? She bad forgotten that also, if she ever knew ; and her 
sister was equally ignorant. They probably bailed from Missouri, 
and were by no means fair specimens of Oregon intelligence. 

Leaving Portland, we steamed down the clear Wallamet for 



412 FORESTS OF WASHINGTON TERRITORY. [1865. 

twelve miles; down the blue Columbia for thirty-eight; up the 
muddy Cowlitz for two ; and landed at Monticello in Washington 
Territory. Thence to Olynipia, ninety miles, an open stage-wagon 
carried us over the worst roads and among the grandest woods in 
the world. It also demonstrated how fifteen passengers can be 
transported in a vehicle which holds only nine — viz. : by putting 
six of them on horseback. 

This is the forest primeval ; thick with slender fir, pine, hemlock, 
spruce, cedar and arbor vitas; the trunks gloved in moss of orange 
green, and branches tufted with long, swaying, hair-like strands of 
brown Spanish moss; the ground wliite, 3'ellow and purple with 
luxuriant flowers. We passed one or two rough villages; and 
farm-houses five or ten miles apart, in little grassy openings — 
islands of prairie in the vast, somber, silent sea of woods. Thou- 
sands of firs not more than eighteen inches in diameter at the base, 
yet rise like masts two hundred and fifty feet. Judge Hewet cut 
one upon his own farm which measured three hundred and twenty- 
five feet in length. For miles the telegraph wire is supported by 
trees alone, and not a pole is seen. 

On the second evening we passed through the picturesque little 
manufacturing hamlet of Tumwater, (falling water,) and half an 
hour later our wagon ride of two days ended at Olympia. 

The Indians of Washington are fish-eating tribes, with little 
intelligence, though the patient efforts of missionaries — especially 
Jesuits — have shown them cnpable of great improvement. They 
often gather on the shore of the beautiful sound, beside some 
quiet cove and hard by the dwelling of a pioneer, in their favorite 
pursuit of gambling. They sit in groups, intently pursuing their 
Mamoohto-lo — literally : * to make, to bet ;' but their general term 
for gambling of every description. 

They have no objection to winning from each other, though 
they commonly select a champion to play against the representa- 
tive of some neighboring tribe. Then comes their Derby-day. 
They often bet every article they possess — money, guns, blankets, 
and even the shirts upon their backs — when the loser goes 
sadly home in a state of nature, as wild in woods the noble savage 
ran. They call the game sh-hal Each player alternately shuffles 
ten wooden disks. Then his adversary must guess which hand 



1865.] 



A STRANGE FOREST VILLAGE. 



413 



contains the one disk that is specially marked. Naming tlie right 
one, he wins a disk ; if the wrong one, he loses. The one first 
gaining the whole ten, wins the game. 

Washington Territory with twenty thousand people, has no 
dail}' uewsj^aper. Olympia, the seat of government at the most 




f-l . .li'KSipa^' 



MOUNT RAINIER, FROM PUGET SOUND. 



southern elbow of Puget sound, contains six hundred people in 
winter, and perhaps half as many in summer. It is a settlement 
sui generis^ struggling hard against primeval Nature and Aborig- 
inal man. Thus far the advantage is rather with the forest and 
the Indian ; but Civilization is treading sharply on the heels of 
Barbarism, and jostling it rudely aside. 

It is a quaint village among logs and stumps, and traversed by 
plank sidewalks erected upon stilts to avoid mud and deluge. 
The arterial street begins on the level shore of the smooth 
shining sound, climbs a low muddy hill, and |)lunges out of sight 

27 



414 THE AMERICA OF THE FUTURE. [1865. 

in the deep pine woods. The capitol is a lonely white frame 
building, like a warehouse ; but we found the national flag floating 
from it, and from nearly all the little neat cottages which consti- 
tute the better dwellings. 

Acting-Governor Elwood Evans, with other leading citizens, 
received Air. Colfax ; and the rude throat of an old field-piece did 
hoarsely counterfeit the dread thunders of immortal Jove to give 
him welcome. 

Ol^mapia boasts two hotels. Quarters were assigned us at the 
Pacific, kept by a peculiarly intelligent negro woman. Iler hus- 
band managed the kitchen ; but she superintended the establish- 
ment, conducted its finances, and put money in the family purse. 

In the evening I strolled through the streets, among Aborigi- 
nes and whites. From great piles of lumber on the long wharf, 
I saw four Indian women embark in a light canoe, weighing- 
it down to the water's edge, and paddle away, gliding noiselessly 
over the unbroken wave which reflected the violet and gold of 
the twilight skies. At last their weird forms and stolid fiiccs were 
hidden by the deep shadows of the opposite shore. What can life 
mean to them ? What are their joys and sorrows, their fears, 
hopes and ambitions? 

After dark, nearly the entire population — men, women, children 
and Indians — were addressed by Messrs. Colfax and Bross. I 
never realized the magnitude of our Union, until in this remotest 
wilderness, forty-four hundred miles from home, I found not only 
the same language, and the same currency; but the same flag, and, 
vibrating from every extremity of the vast continent, the sani > 
hopes, sympathies and undying memories. And wlien at this 
strange gathering in the primeval forest I saw many eyes grow 
wet at mention of our martyred President, and heard every voice 
thrill in cheers for our redeemed republic, my heart swelled with 
pride and hope for the swarming, potential America of the future. 
May its name be omnipotent to the weary and troubled of every 
zone ! May its flag betoken to the nations, Stability and Progress, 
Liberty and Law, Opportunity for the lowliest, and Justice pure 
and exact unto all men 1 

From Olympia we took a steamer upon Puget sound, the 
loveliest body of water in the western hemisphere. Hundreds of 



1865.] BEAUTIFUL SCENERY OF PUGKT SOUND. 415 

islands dot the shining surface, while its clear depths are almost as 
transparent as air. Spreading in a great complicated net-work of 
arms, straits and inlets, it has fourteen hundred miles of navigation, 
and affords to Washington more harbors than are possessed by 
any other region of equal area in the world. It is surrounded by 
a vast wilderness. Indeed Washington is the lumber-man's para- 
dise — not because it is a Future State but from its unequaled 
forests. 

The lumber-trade of Puget sound exceeds a million dollars 
annually. Ever}'- town upon the coast contains immense saw-mills. 
We glanced through one, upward of three hundred feet long, 
which turns out over a-Jiundred thousand feet daih". Spars and 
other ship timbers, superior to those of any foreign country, are 
furnished to the entire Pacific coast, the Sandwich Islands, Japan, 
China, Australia, England and France. The Puget sound fir 
has superseded 

— ' The tallest pine 



Hewn on Norwegian hills to be the mast 
Of some great Admiral.' 

The fish interests of the sound and its heavy coal trade from 
Bellingham Bay, added to its lumber resources, make it the most 
important possession of the North Pacific. 

Nearly all day we were in sight of Mount Rainier, triple- 
pointed and robed in snow. Baker, Adams and St. Helen's are 
all striking. Shasta is grand, Hood is grander; but from this 
gtand-point, Rainier, whose summit has never been trodden by 
man, is monarch of all, the Mont Blanc of the Pacific coast. 

The author of 'the Seasons' was indignant at the thousfht that 
one could write an epic poem who had never seen a mountain. 
These grand peaks tell at a glance why the ancients placed the 
abode of the immortal gods on the snow-crowned mountains of 
Thessaly. Indeed one is fittingly named Olympus. 

Our boat touched at Steilacoom, Port Ludlow, Seattle, Port 
Angelos and Port Gamble. The last-named gave one hundred 
and thirty-eight votes for Lincoln and not one for McClellan ; and 
during the war contributed more proportionately to the Sanitary 
Commission than any other town in the Union. 



416 UNDER THE BRITISH FLAG. [1865, 

At the north end of Puget sound, we crossed the Straits of Fuca, 
named from Juan de Fuca, the first white man who ever saw 
Washington Territory, Tliough of Greek birth, he was sent in 
1792, in charge of a Spanish vessel, to fortify a supposititious 
strait, lest the English should pass through it, from the Atlantic 
to the Pacific! The geography of his day was a good deal con- 
fused. Northwest America is the home of old romance. Here 
ingenious scholars place the Atlantis of Bacon. Here that great- 
est of navigators and explorers — Captain Lemuel Gulliver — dis- 
covered the kingdom of Brobdinf^rnag. 

We landed at Victoria, Vancouver Island, a little metropolis 
whose rise and growth are wholly due to the traffic of the Frasier 
river gold-mines. Originally it was the depot of the Hudson Bay 
Company. 

Now we were under the British flag ; but the Stars and Stripes 
waved in every street, in honor of the speaker. The Ameri- 
can residents led by the United States consul 'received' him; and 
then the mayor and city council presented a welcoming address, 
inscribed on parchment, conveying national congratulations and 
personal compliments, and with a very English eye to business, 
soliciting his influence for relaxation of the navigation laws, which 
fetter commerce with the United States. 

Victoria is well built of brick and stone, with a population of 
five thousand. It is peopled by English, Americans, Chinese 
and Indians. Yankees who have resided here but five or six 
years, have quite lost the cadaverous, eager American physiog- 
nomy, and exhibit that full, florid face which is the English type 
the world over. They look like born Britons. Is it the result of 
half-and-half, climate, association or accident? 

The Indians wear the garb of civilization. Some of their 
women on the streets even display crinoline, and 'water-falls.' 
Many have very noticeable features. Seattle, from whom a town 
on the sound is named, is a stolid old patriarch who claims to re- 
member the visit of Vancouver sevent3^-five years ago. ' King 
Freezy ' and ' Queen Freezy ' are dull and stolid specimens of 
Aboriginal royalty. ' Lightning,' a savage belle, would create a 
sensation in a civilized ball-room. 

If any one doubts that the world is governed too much, let him 



1865.] 



FEATURES OF VANCOUVER ISLAND. 



417 



study the parliament of this little island, wliich sits ten months in 
the yearl The fifteen members of the lower house are all elective. 
Of the seven members composing the upper, three are named by 
the crown, and four, including the colonial secretary, treasurer and 
chief justice, are ex officio members. In endurance, and doubtless 
in dignity, the body surpasses the British Parliament and the 
Congress of the United States. 

It is characteristic, that 

while New York with four 
millions of people, pays 
her governor four tliou- 
sand dollars a year, the 
executive of this island, 
whose population is only 
seven thousand, receives 
fifteen thousand dollars 
per annum. The English 
do these thino-s better than 

O 

we. 

Sir James Douolas, the 
former governor, married 
an educated half-breed 
lad}'', and his chiklren 
have strong Indian features. In July, in his anijile garden bloomed 
many varieties of rose, dahlia, pink, nasturtiuvn, verbena, Califor- 
nia poppy and other delicate flowers, with ripe currants and cher- 
ries of capital flavor. 

That evening the American residents gave a banquet to 'Sir. 
Colfax, attended hy one IiuikIixmI and fifty guests, including the 
governor and other English officials and citizens. British, French, 
Irish, and American flags festooned the hall. After three hours 
of eating the speaking began, and lasted for five mortal hours 
longer. The etiquette was entirely English, differing somewhat 
from ours. Her Majesty is never cheered nor the toast in her 
honor responded to by a speech. The president gives: 'The 
Queen ;' the vice-president replies: ' God bless her !' and her health 
is drank standing, in silence. When any profession — the bar, for 
example — is toasted, all its members rise and stand till the 




' LIGHTNING,' AN INDIAN BELLE. 



418 AMERICAN EIIETOKIC ASIOXG THE BRITONS. [1865. 

responses are ended. Speakers address both ends of the table: 
* Mr, President, Mr. Vice-president and Gentlemen.' 

Of course the English speeches were conversational — couched in 
the language of plain, everj^-daj talk — though direct, pointed and 
sensible. And of course the Americans plunged into the pro- 
foundest abyss of rhetoric, and soared to the empyrean of declama- 
tion. Once or twice they ran into the ludicrously bombastic; 
but they amazed and delighted the British auditors — like the rest, 
a little the better for liquor — who applauded to the echo. 

In wine is friendliness if not truth. We had not only the inev- 
itable staple of such occasions, about Shakspeare, and Milton, a 
common language and a common lineage ; but a leading British 
official even predicted that at some future day the two nations 
would be one 1 — a remark which was rapturously cheered. 

' Nothing^ succeeds like success.' Tljerc was much Southern 
sympathy on the island ; now all are our dear friends, our affec- 
tionate cousins, our admiring brethren. Johnny Keb. has proved 
a bad failure ; and Johnny Bull, who began by embracing him, 
ends with a parting kick. 

From Victoria we returned to San Francisco by ocean steamer : 
seven 1 \ undred and forty miles ; three days ; forty-live dollars. We 
were usually in sight of Land, and passed near the mouth of Columbia 
river, five miles wide and obstructed by the worst bar in the world. 
There is not a single good harbor between Victoria and San Francisco. 

We threaded St. George's Keef— a series of dangerous rocks near 
the land ; some rising two or three hundred feet, othere entirely 
under water. Here we hoped to meet the Brother Jonathan, with 
papers from San Francisco only twenty -four hours old. The swell 
was very high, and our captain's flice wrinkled with anxiety until 
the perilous point was passed. Meanwhile we were discussing the 
chances for life one would have, shipwrecked in that heavy sea. 

We missed the Brother Jonathan; but two hours after we 
passed the reef she reached it, struck a rock, and in forty -five 
minutes went to the bottom. Of her passengers and crew only 
sixteen were saved. One hundred and fifty, with their human 
hopes and fears, their loves and longings and ambitions, were 
engulfed in that repository which keeps all its treasures and all its 
.secrets till the sea shall give up its dead. Of the six small boats, 



1865.] 



FATE OF THE BROTHER JONATHAN. 



419 



live were swamped in launching; one reached the shore, full of 
})nssengers. After the ship struck, James Nisbet, editor of the San 
Francisco Bulletin, found time and coolness to write his will. 




COVii-lwNilJi.NT bTUEKl', VICIUKIA, VANCOUVER ISLAND. 

There must be a best way of launching boats under such cir- 
cumstances. There must be possible machinery to facilitate it. 
Thei'e must be some wa)^ for a man with Nisbet's nerve and calm- 
ness to save himself, if he only knew it. 

Marine disasters are far more frequent and appalling on our 
coasts than in any other quarter of the globe. They spring largely 
from our national recklessness ; and illustrate the ever-recurring 
anomaly, that here, where human nature finds its most generous 
opportunities, human life is less prized than in any other civilized 
nation. Our whole s^'stem of travel by river and sea is shamefully 
hazardous. Our best ocean steamers are without boats enough to 
hold all their passengers, even in smooth waters. And when an 
inspection is to take place, owners and officers often know it in 
season to borrow hose, boats, and other needful articles of outfit. 
The slaughter will never cease till proprietors and managers are 
held to strict responsibility. Convict and punish them for homi- 
cide whenever it occurs through their penuriousness, heedlessness, 
or neglect of precautions which law and humanity require. 



420 DISCOVERY OF YOSEMITE VALLEY. [1865. 



CHAPTER XXXV. 

See Yosemite and die ! I shall not attempt to describe it ; tlie 
subject is too large and my capacity too small. Here might the 
author of the 'Divine Comedy,' whose troubled brow and yearning 
eyes appeal, to us through the shadows of five centuries, despair- 
ingly repeat: 'I may not paint them all in full, for the long theme 
so chases me that many times the word comes short of the reality.' 

Yosemite should be studied for months ; I saw it but five days. 
Volumes ouglit to be and will be written about it ; I can only 
group a few hints and impressions. 

Yosemite — signifying grizzh"-b \ar — was the name of a tribe of 
Indians. In 1851 they were hostile. The whites pursuing them 
into their home and stronghold, discovered this crowning wonder 
of the world. Finding in one lodge a very aged squaw, the}^ asked 
how old she was. The Indians replied that when she was a girl 
these mountains were hills! To appreciate the statement one 
should see the mountains. 

Our party of seventeen — the largest which ever entered the val- 
ley — included my companions of the overland trip; and among 
other friends, Fi-od. Mac Crellish of the Alta Cah'foniia^ William 
Ashburner of the California Geological Survey, Frederick Law 
Olmsted, and Charles Allen, attorney general of the State of Mas- 
sachusetts. 

On the seventh of August, after four days' hard travel from San 
Francisco, we galloped out of the pine woods, dismounted, stood 
upon the rocky precipice of Inspiration Point, and looked down 
into Yosemite as one from a house-top looks down into his garden, 
or as he would view the interior of some stupendous roofless ca- 
thedral, from the top of one of its towering walls. In the distance. 



1865.] 



VIEW FROM INSPIRATION POINT. 



421 



across the gorge, were snow-streaked mountains. Right under us 
was the narrow, winding basin of meadow, grove and shining 
river, shut in by granite walls from two thousand to five thousand 
feet hiiih — walls with immense turrets of bare rock — walls so 
upright and perfect that an expert crag-man can climb out of the 
valley at only three or four points. 

Flinging a pebble from the rock upon which we stood, and 
looking over the 

brink, I saw it foil ^ ^^^^^T^""^^^ 

more than half a ^rXk^r 

mile before strik- 
ing. Glancing 
across the narrow, 
profound chasm, I 
surveyed an un- 
broken, seamless 
wall of granite, 
two-thirds of a 
mile hio'h, and 
more than perpen- 
dicular — the t0[) 
projecting one 
hundred and fifty 
feet over the base. 
Turning toward 
the upper end of 
the valley, I be- 
held a half-dome 
of rock, one mile 
high, and on its 
summit a solitary, 
gigantic cedar, appearing like the merest twig. Originally a vast 
granite mountain, it was riven from top to bottom by some ancient 
convulsion, which cleft asunder the everlasting hills and rent the 
great globe itself. 

The measureless, inclosing walls, with these leading towers and 
many other turrets — gray, brown and white rock, darkly veined 
from summit to base with streaks and ribbons of falling water — 




GOINa INTO YOSEMITE VALLEY. 



422 HIDING DOWN THE ZIGZAGS. [1865. 

bills, almost upright, yet studded witli tenacious firs and cedars; 
and the deep-down level floor of grass, with its thread of river 
and pigmy trees, all burst upon me at once. Nature had lifted 
her curtain to reveal the vast and the infinite. It elicited no 
adjectives, no exclamations. With bewildering sense of divine 
power and human littleness, I could only gaze in silence, till the 
view strained my brain and pained my eyes, compelling me to 
turn away and rest from its oppressive magnitude. 

Riding for two hours, down, down, among sharp rocks and 
dizzy zigzags, where the five ladies of our party found it diffi- 
cult to keep in their saddles, and narrowly escaped pitching over 
their horses' heads, we were in the valle}^, entering by the Mari- 
posa trail. The diagram sliows its form and features. The length 
of the valley or cleft is nine miles ; its average width three-fourths 
of a mile. The following dimensions are in feet : 

Average width of Merced river, 60 

Hight of Yusemite falls. (Upper, 1,G00: Rnpids, 434; Lower, 600,). .2,634 

Width of these falls at upper summit, in August, 15 

Hight of Bridal Vail fall, 940 

Hight of South Fork fall, 740 

Hight of Vernal foil, 330 

Hight of Nevadafall, 700 

Width of Vernal and Nevada, at summits, 40 

Hight of El Capitan rock 3.900 

Hight of Three Brothers rock (three turrets,) 3.437 

Hight of North Dome rock 3,720 

Hight of In.spiration Point rock, 3,000 

Hight of Cathedral rocks (two turrets,) 3,000 

Hight of Sentinel rock, ■ 3,270 

Hight of Mount Colfax 3,400 

Hiplit ofMount Starr King, 4.500 

Hight of South Dome rock, 6,000 

Riding up the valley for five miles, past Bridal A^ail fall, (on 
the brook entering the Merced from the south, above Inspiration 
Point,) Cathedral rocks and the Sentinel, we dismounted and es- 
tablished our headquarters at ilutchings'. This is a two-story 
frame house, with interior walls of ' soft finish,' a local term, in 
contra-distinction to plastering of 'hard finish' and signifying 
only curtains of white muslin for partitions. They compel guests 
who don't wish to give magic-lantern exhibitions to extinguish 



1865.] 



HUTCHINGS AND HIS HOUSEHOLD. 



423 



their candles before disrobing; but afford rarest facilities for general 
conversation after every one has gone to bed. 

Hutchings and his jfamily regaled us on the fat of the land and 
the fruit of the water — sweet milk and savory trout. In winter 
the sun rises upon them at 




one o'clock P. M., and sets 
two hours later. Then they 
receive mails and news 
from the outside world once a 
week, through adventurous In- 
dians, who cross the dangerous 
mountain snows, twenty feet 
deep, to Coulterville or ALari- 
posa. 

Ilutchimrs is landlord and 
autlior; his illustrated 'Scenes 
of Wonder and Curiosity in 
California ' is a creditable and 
valuable work. A friend, vis- 
iting here for the first time, 
found his wife upon the river- 
bank, with one hand vigor- 
ously turning the crank of a 
patent washing-machine, and 
with the other holding the 
latest Atlantic Monthly, ab- 
sorbed in one of its articles. 
Only Indian labor is attainable. 
If eastern ladies who suffer 
constant martyrdoin in respect 

of ' help,' were compelled to live on the Pacific coast a few months 
and employ Chinamen and Indians in lieu of servant girls, they 
would learn who is well off. 

In front of Plutchimzs' runs the Merced, fresh from the Sierras. 
Delightful and exhilarating, though a little chilly for the swim- 
mer, it is so perfectly transparent as to cheat the eye, and beguile 
beyond his depth any one attempting to wade it. Crossing it by 
a rustic log bridge, we are in a smooth, level meadow of tall grass, 



DIAGRAM OF YOSEMITE VALLEY. 



424 



TREES AND WALLS OF THE VALLEY, 



[1865. 



variegated with myriads of wild flowers, including primroses of 
yellow and crimson, and a lily-shaped blossom of exquisite purple, 
known as the Ithuriel spear. 

The meadow is fringed with groves of pines and spreading oak, 

and on one side bounded by the 
everlasting walls. The pines, like 
those of Washington Territory, 
are simply hight, slenderness, 
symmetry. The delicate tracery 
of the branch is beautiful beyond 
description ; but the trunk is com- 
pai-atiyely small. I procured a 
])liulograph of two, wonderfully 



n^f^j ii 



-^ 












5 i^^!:.>^i'':::"m 






ij- 






regular and graceful, and more 



tlian two hundred feet high, which 

dwarfed to a child's block-house a 

laro;e frame-dwelling; at their feet. 

111 the evening, illuminated and 

sofliMir-d by the full moon, the 

b^-u'try of the yalK\y was marvrl- 

ous. The brisfht liijhts of the 

distant house slioiie tlirough the 

dvH'p pines, and the i-iyoi'"s low 

trui-^'liu''' faintly distuibcd the air. 

At times immense bowlders, 

breaking from the summits, rolled down 

thundci'ing, and filling the vallcv with 

their loud reyerberations. 

The rock mountains are the crreat 
feature ; indeed they are Yosemite. The 
nine granite walls which range in altitude 
from three to six thousand feet, are the 
most striking examples on the globe of the masonry of Nature. 

Their dimensions are so vast that they utterly outrun our ordi- 
nary standards of comparison. One might as well be told of a 
wall, upright like the side of a house for ten thousand miles, as 
for two-thirds of one mile. When we speak of a giant twenty -five 
feet high, it conveys some definite impression ; but to tell of one 




EL CAPITAN. 3900 FEET HIGH. 



I 



1865.] YOSEMITE FALL, — HIGHEST IX THE WORLD. 425 



three thousiin J feet liigli, would 
only bewilder, and convey no 
meaning whatever. So, at first, 
these stupendous walls painfully 
confuse the mind. By degrees, 
day after day, the sight of them 
clears it, until, at last, one re- 
ceives a just impression of their 
solemn innnensity. 

Cathedral rocks have two tui-- 
rets, and look like some Titanic 
religious pile. Sentinel towers 
alone, grand and hoary. The 
South Dome, a mile high, is really 
a semi-dome. Cleft from top to 
bottom, one-half of it went on 
the other side of the chasm and 
disappeared, when the 
mountains were rent in twain. 
The gisrantic North Dome is as 
round and perfect as the cupola 
of the national capitol. Three 
Brothers is a triple- 
pointed mass of solid 
granite. All these 
I'ocks, and scores of 
lesser ones which 
would be noticeable 
anywhere else in the 
world, exhibit vege- 
tation. Hardy cedars, 
thrusting roots into 
imperceptible crevices 
of their upright sides 
— apparently growing 
out of unbroken stone 
— huve braved a 
thousand years the 
battle and the breeze. 




426 EL CAPITAN; mount KING; MOUNT COLFAX. [1865. 

El Capitan is grandest of all. No tuft of beard shades or fringes 
its closely shaven face. No tenacious vine even can fasten its 
tendrils, to climb that smooth, seamless, stuj^endous wall. There 
it will stand, grandeur, massiveness, indestructibility, till the 
heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements melt 
with fervent heat. Its Indian name is Tu-tocli-ah-mi-lah. Both 
this and the Spanish word signify ' the leader;' but were applied 
in the sense of the Supreme Being. It ought to be called Mount 
Abraham Lincoln. 

One noble mountain most appropriately commemorates Thomas 
Starr King. Another, immediately in the rear of Hutchings', 
our party found nameless, and, excepting only the speaker him- 
self, unanimously voted to christen it Mount Colfax. Whether 
the name sticks or not, will depend upon future writers. But I 
am sure it will be perpetual, if adhered to by all tourists and jour- 
nalists friendly to that orphan printer-boy of not man}' years ago, 
whose industr}^, talents and perfect integrity have won for his 
early manhood the third place of civil trust and honor in the gift 
of the American people. 

Hutchings' affords a perfect view of Yosemite falls, a mile dis- 
tant. In April and May, when melting snows swell the stream to 
a deep torrent, they are grand ; but then the valley is half flooded. 
In late summer their creek shrinks to a skeleton ; and they look 
small because their surroundings are so vast. Niagara itself 
would dwarf beside the rocks in this valley. 

Yet Yosemite is the loftiest water-fall in the world. Think of a 
cataract, or cascade, of half a mile with only a single break ! It is 
sixteen times higher than Niagara. Twelve Bunker Hill monu- 
ments standing upright, one upon another, would barely reach its 
summit. Ossa upon Pelion becomes a tame and meaningless com- 
parison. 

We did not climb to the Kapids and foot of the Upper fall ; 
that is difficult, hazardous and exhausting. Nor did we go to the 
extreme summit; that requires a circuitous ride of twenty -five 
miles out of the valley. But we spent much time at the base of 
the Lower fall, shut in by towering walls of dark granite. The 
basin abounds in rocks— some as large as a dwelling house— which 
have tumbled down from the top. Spreading my blankets upon 



1865.] BRIDAL VAIL; VERNAL; MIRROR LAKE. 427 

one of these, almost under the fall, I found it a smooth bed, though 
a little damp from spray; and spent the night there to see the 
cataract in the varying illuminations and shadows of sunlight, 
twilight, starlight and moonlight. 

Much of the water turns to mist before reaching the bottom ; 
yet looking up from under it the volume seems great. Six hun- 
dred feet above, a body of ragged snowy foam with disheveled 
tresses, rushes over the brink; and comes singing down in slender 
column, swayed to and fro by the wind like a long strand of lace. 
For four hundred feet the descent is unruffled ; then, striking a 
broad, inclining rock, like the roof of a house, the water spreads 
over it — a thin, shining, transparent apron, fringed with delicate 
gauze — and glides swiftly to the bottom. By moonlight the wtiole 
looks like a long white ribbon, hanging against the brown wall, 
with its lower end widening and unraveled. 

Bridal Vail fall, unbroken, much narrower, and softened by 
a delicate mist which half hides it, is a strip of white fluttering 
foam, which the wind swings like a silken pendulum. It is 
spanned by a rainbow; and at some points the thin, glass-like 
sheet reveals every hue of the wall behind it. Before reaching 
the end of its long descent, a rill no longer, it is completely trans- 
formed to spray — the Niobe of cascades dissolved in tears. 

Above Hatchings' the valley breaks into three canyons and the 
Merced into three forks. North Fork passes through Mirror Lake 
— the very soul of transparency. It reflects grass, trees, rocks, 
mountains and sky with such perfect and startling vividness that 
one cannot believe them images and shadows. He fancies the 
world turned upside down, and shrinks back from the lake lest he 
should tumble ov^er the edge into the inverted dome of blue sky. 

On the Middle or main Fork is Vernal fall, difficult of access. 
Leaving our horses three miles from the hotel, we climbed for two 
weary hours along dizzy shelves and up sharp rocks, where the 
trail rises one thousand feet to the mile ; — pine woods all around 
us; at our left and far below, the river chafing and roaring in its 
stony bed. Then we stood at the foot of Vernal fall. Bridal 
Vail and Yosemite are on little lateral creeks; Vernal is the full, 
swelling torrent of the Merced. Those creep softly and slowly 
down, as if in pain and hesitation. This rushes eagerly over 



428 



THE WONDERFUL ROUND RAINBOW. 



[1865. 



gloomy brown rocks ; then leaps headlong for more than three 
hundred feet, roaring like a minature Niagara. 

liainbows of dazzling brightness shine at its base. Others of 
the party reported many ; my own e3^es, defective as to colors, 
beheld only two. But afterward when alone, I saw what to 
Hebrew prophet had been a vision of heaven, or the visible 
presence of the Almighty. It was the round rainbow — the com- 
plete circle. In the afternoon sun I stood upon a rock a hundred 
feet from the base of the fall, and nearly on a level with it. There 

were two brilliant 
rainbows of usual 
form — the crescent, 
the bow proper. But 
while I looked, the 
two horns of the 
inner or lower crescent 
suddenly lengthened, 
extendino- on each 
side to my feet — an 
entire circle, perfect as 
a finger- ring. In two 
or three seconds it 
passed away, shrink- 
ing to the first dimen- 
sions. Ten minutes 
later it formed again ; 
and again as suddenly 
disappeared. Every 
sharp gust of wind 
showering the spray 
over me revealed for 
a moment the round 
rainbow. Completely 
drenched I stood for an hour and a half; and saw, fully twenty 
times, that dazzling circle of violet and gold, on a groundwork 
of wet dark rock, gay dripping flowers and vivid grass. I never 
looked upon any other scene in Nature so beautiful and im- 
pressive. 




VERNAL FALL AND THE HOUMi KAI.Minw. 



1865.] GRANDEST SCENERY ON THE GLOBE. 429 

Climbing a high rock- wall by crazy wooden ladders, we con- 
tinued up the canyon for three quarters of a mile to Nevada fall, 
where the Merced tumbles seven hundred feet, in ' white and 
swaying mistiness.' Near the bottom it strikes an inclined rock, 
and spreads upon it in a sheet of floating silver tissue a hundred 
and thirty feet wide. 

Passing over a wide, gaping crack or chasm in this rocky grade, 
the thin sheet of water breaks into delicate, snowy net- work; then 
into myriads of shining beads, and finally into long sparkling 
threads — an exquisite silken fringe to the great white curtain. 

These names are peculiarly fitting. Bridal Vail indeed looks 
like a vail of lace. In summer, when Bridal Vail and Yosemite 
dwarf. Vernal still pours its ample torrent. And Nevada is al- 
ways white as a snow-drift. 

The Yosemite is hight ; the Vernal is volume ; the Bridal Vail 
is softness; but the Nevada is hight, volume and softness 
combined. South Fork cataract, most inaccessible of all, we did 
not visit. In spring each fall has twenty times as much water 
as in summer. 

The days we spent in the valley were delightful and memorable. 
Evenings were devoted to song and merry-making; and the motto 
of the party was: ' If any man gets up before eight o'clock in 
the morning, shoot him on the spot.' But by ^ay we wandered 
where we listed, and viewed the great features of the valley, as all 
impressive things in nature should be viewed, alone. Most heartily 
I envied Olmsted, who with his ftimily, with horses, tents and 
books, remained for several weeks, moving from day to day, and 
encamping wherever fancy dictated- 

On the whole, Yosemite is incomparably the most wonderful 
feature of our continent, European travelers agree that trans- 
atlantic scenery has nothing at all approaching it. Unless the 
unexplored IIimala3\as hide some rival, there is no spot, the wide 
world over, of such varied beauty and measureless grandeur. 

Climbing out of the valley, we cast one longing, lingering look 
behind, from Inspiration Point Here is the best comprehensive 
view, not of separate features but of the whole. This vast open 
cathedral, which would hold fifty millions of worshippers, is true 
to the ancient imperious maxim of architecture : its mean width 

28 



430 EIGHT THOUSAND FEET ABOVE SEA-LEVEL. [1865. 



about equals the average bight of its walls. Our eyes, now ad- 
justed to its distances and dimensions, were no longer pained by 
the amazing spectacle. At last we turned away from this 
sublimest page in all the book of nature. I think few can come 
from its study without hearts more humble and reverent, lives 
more worthy and loyal. 

Yosemite valley is four thousand feet above sea-level. After 

climbing out 
and re-passing 
Inspiration 
Point, we still 
ascend ; and 
then ride for 
several miles 
at an altitude 
of about eight 
thousand feet. 
Here, where 
snow is some- 
times twenty 
feet deep, are 
meadows of 
richest grass 
and brighest 
flowers. 

The pyra- 
midal, slender 
pine abounds, 
frequentlj^two 
hundred feet high, its trunk and branches gorgeous with yellow 
moss. So does the exquisite, blue-tipped, silvery fir. This 
profuse vegetation, with larkspur, daisy, lily, honeysuckle and 
godola, is at a hight which, in New England would frost-kill tree, 
flower, grass and twig. Even here are thousands of dwarf oaks 
and chestnuts rarely four feet high, yet prolific of shriveled nuts. 
The mountain mahogany also flourishes. Its red berry makes 
excellent cider; and its acid juice quenches the thirst of men and 
of grizzly bears. 




BED AND BOABD. 



1865.] VISITING THE MARIPOSA BIG TREES. 431 

111 1859, Horace Greeley found upon this lonely summit a stray 
Yankee, pasturing one hundred and fifty hogs, which he protected 
at night from the grizzly bears, by building around them a circle 
of log fires. Long ere this bears have been thinned by pioneer 
rifles ; hogs have made their inevitable journey to the San Fran- 
cisco slaughter-house; and herdsman perhaps turned to a day 
laborer in Australian mines, perhaps to a bank president in New 
York, with parlors at the Fifth Avenue Hotel, and a six-horse 
equipage in the Central Park. 

After coming out of the valley we spent the first night at 
Clark's, a long low porched log house in the deep woods. Mr. 
Clark is a hermit and a pioneer of intelligence and kindness, who 
has turned his back upon civilization, eschewed 'boiled shirts ;' and 
without wife or child, pitched his lonely tent in the wilderness. 
During winter even he retreats before the Storm-king to Mariposa. 
Long-bearded and sun-browned, he looks like a modernized 
Wandering Jew, and talks like a professor of belles-lettres and 
moral philosophy. He furnished us with bed and board. The 
ladies occupied straw couches under his roof, filling the house; 
while their banished lords slept under heaven's canopy, in the 
lee of a friendly hay-stack, with a blanket for lodgings and a board 
for a pillow. 

The Mariposa Big Trees are six miles from Clark's and thirty 
from Yosemite valley. We visited them by diverging five miles 
from our homeward route to San Fancisco, Six hundred of these 
mammoths are scattered among the noble pines of twelve hundred 
and eiglity acres. Many of the pines are two hundred feet high. 
Elsewhere tfiey would be kings of tlie forest; but among these 
hoary giants they become puny, insignificant children. Pigmies 
on Alps may be pigmies still, but pyramids are not alwaj's pyra- 
mids in vales. 

The Big Trees have been considered redwoods — a species of 
cedar abounding upon this coast — but the botanists decide other- 
wise and name them Sequoias. They are the oldest and most 
stupendous vegetable products existing upon the globe. Already 
twenty groves have been discovered in California. The ^tariposa 
is largest and finest, though the Calaveras, fifty miles to the north- 
ward, is better known. 



432 



FORTY FEET IN DIAMETER. 



[1865. 



Of tlie Mariposa sequoias, two hundred are more than twelve 
feet in diameter, fifty more than sixteen feet, and six more than 
thirty feet. The largest, called the Prostrate Monarch, now lying 
upon the ground leafless and branchless, is believed to have fallen 
fully one hundred and fifty years ago I Fire has consumed much 
of the trunk ; but enough remains to show that with the bark on 
it must have been forty feet in thickness. Figures give little idea 




RIDIXG THROUGH A TUKE-THL'XK. 

of such dimensions. Measure up forty feet on a house- wall ; then 
four hundred feet along the ground; and try to picture the 
diameter and hightof the Prostrate Monarch as it stood a thousand 
years ago. 

The tops of the largest trees are broken ofi^, leaving their average 
hight about two hundred and fifty feet, though some range between 
three and four hundred feet. We saw one with a branch — not a 
fork, but an honest, lateral branch — six feet in diameter, growing 
from the stem eighty feet above the ground. Into a cavity burned 
in the side of anotlier standing tree, fifteen of us rode together. 
Without crowding, we all sat upon our horses in that black, novel 



1865.] A FOKEST IXGOMAR AND PAllTUENIA. 433 

chamber, tliougli it occupies less than half the thickness of the 
immense trunk. 

Through a stem lying upon the ground, fire has bored like an 
auger. Our entire cavalcade, including all the tall men, all the 
l;it men, and all the ample skirts, rode through it from end to end, 
like a railway train through a tunnel. 

One enormous living trunk which parts near the ground into 
two tall, symmetric, perfect stems, is christened the Faithful 
Couple. ]\[r. Clark assured us, in a poetic gush quite unlooked-for 
from a hermit and a backwoodsman, that they were 

'Two souls with but a single thought, 
Two hearts that beat as one.' 

The faithfulness of this forest Ingomar and Parthetiia is like 
that of some human couples — neither can get away. 

The largest standing tree is the Grizzly Giant. Its bark is 
nearly two feet thick. If it were cut off smoothly, fifty horses 
could easily stand, or sixteen couples dance, upon the stump. If 
the trunk were hollowed to a shell, it would hold more freight 
than a man-of-war or a first-class ocean steamer two hundred and 
fifty feet long ! 

One of the Calaveras sequoias was cut down by boring with 
augers and sawing the spaces between. The work employed five 
men for twenty-five days. When fully cut off the tree stubbornly 
continued to stand, only yielding at last to a mammoth wedge and 
a powerful battering-ram. 

The pine cones are cylindrical, and sometimes nearlj^ two feet 
long. Those of the Big Trees are round, and not larger than 
apples. Seedlings from them are growing in every country of 
Europe. They are numerous in English parks, where a mania 
prevails for coniferous trees. Two hundred are planted in our 
great Central Park ; and manj^ more in the nurseries of western 
New York. They are thrifty and vigorous: how large they will 
become is an interesting problem. 

There seems to be no convincing or even plausible theory of 
their origin. I should rather say of their preservation ; for they 
are children of a long-ago climatic era. The age of giants lingers 
on the entire Pacific coast. 



484 GRIZZLY GIANT — 3 -i FEET IN DIAMETER. [1865. 




Through California and 
Oregon stupendous red- 
woods are everywhere 
numerous; and on the 
summit of the Sierras, 
almost a mile above sea- 
level, grow sugar pines 
ten and twelve feet in 
diameter. Well saj's 
Holmes: 

'In fact, there's nothing' th;;t 

keeps its youth — 
So far as I know — but a tree 
and truth.' 

It was once thought 
incredible tliat the yew 
should live a thousand 
years. But these monster 
sequoias are the world's 
patriarchs. Some botanists 
date their birth fixr back 
of earliest human history; 
none estimate their age at 
less than eighteen hun- 
dred years. Perch;wu:e 
their youth saw the 
awkward, thundei'ing 

mastodon canter over the 
hills; and the hundred- 
feet-long reptile, of many 
leofs and mouth like a 
volcano, crawl sluggishly 
through torrid swamps. 
Thev were living when 
the fother of poets, old, 
blind and vagabond, sang 
his immortal song; when 



1865.] A GRAND NATIONAL SUMMER RESORT. 435 

the sage of Athens, ' that most Christian heathen,' calmly drank 
the hemlock; when the carpenter of Judea, from whom the whole 
world now computes its time, was a man of sorrows and 
acquainted with grief, despised and rejected of men. 

From the groves we continued on horseback to AVhite and 
Hatch's; thence by carriage to Mariposa, the stage-coach and 
civilization. Tliousands of cattle browse upon the parched grass 
and wild oats. Their herders, native Yankees, are the most dar- 
ing of riders — at full speed leaping off and remounting; and 
throwing the lasso around anj' leg or horn of wild horse or ox 
"with unerring precision. 

One universal feature of California — rainless for half the year — 
would have driven Don Quixote distracted : windmills at nearly 
every house drawing water from wells for irrigation. 

Traveling time from San Francisco to Yosjmite, via Big Trees: 
four days each way. Preferable route: goby Mariposa and re- 
turn via Coulterville. Expenses of round trip: about ten dollars 
per day. Distances via Mariposa : 

San Francisco to Stockton, (steamer.) 123 miles. 

Stockton to Mariposa, (stajice.) 91 mile.s. 

Maripo.sa to White & I latflTs, (carriage,) 11 inile«. 

Wliite & Hatch's to Clark's, (horseback.) 1-1 miles, 

Clark's to Yosemite, (iiorseback,) 2i] miies. 

San Francisco to Yosemite, 205 miles. 

An act of Congress has segregated Yosemite valley ar.d the 
Mariposa groves of Big Trees, from the general pul)!ic domain, 
setting them apart as pleasure grounds for the peo})ie oi' the United 
States and their heirs and assigns forever. This wise lesfislation 
secures to the proper national uses, incomparably the largest and 
grandest park, and the sublimest natural scenery in the whole 
world. They are under the care of a commission appointed by 
the governor of California for their preservation and j^rotection — 
to render them accessible, keep them free from mutilation, and sea 
that no vandal hand of Art attempts tc improve upon the simplic- 
ity and grandeur of Nature. 



436 INVITED TO CELESTIAL HOSPITALITIES. [1865. 



CHAPTER XXXVI. 

From our out-of-the-world journeyings to Yosemite and tlae 
Big Trees, we returned to terrestrial pursuits and Celestial hospi- 
talities. The latter were tendered in the following invitation to 
each of the four members of our party, printed upon slips of gilt- 
edged, pink paper, in shape and size like commercial envelopes: 






^ 







% 






>J 






_ iii"-**T^ 




f^ 



:^ 



t 



it>t 




INVITATlOir TO CHINESE DIIfNEB. 

1. (Superscription on envelope.) ' May Mr. prosper.' 

2. (First enclosure.) ' The keeper of the Luh-hwui saloon presents compliments/ 
{Luh-hwui signifies ' Collecting from all quarters,') 



1865.] SITTING DOWN TO THE BANQUET. 437 

3 and 4. (Second enclosure.) ' This noon a sliglit repast awaits liglit.' — ('Awaits your 
presence.') Ordinarily Cliinese characters read in column from top to bottom and from 
right to left. But here, as usual in cases of compliment, tlio upper, left-hand character 
for ' light ' (used by Chinese custom instead of the pronoun ' you,') is elevated to the 
top of a new line, aa a mark of respect. 

In addition to the guests of the evening, thirty-five prominent 

American gentlemen, and thirty leading Chinese residents received 

this card : 

San Francisco, August 15, 1865. 
You are respectfully invited to attend a complimentary dinner, to be given to th« 
Hon. Schuyler Colfax, speaker of the United States House of Representatives; tho 
Hon. Wm. Bross, lieutenant-governor of Illinois ; Albert D. Riciiardson, Nevj York 
Tribune, and Samuel Bowles, SpringfiM (Mass.) Republican, by the Six Chinese Com- 
panies IN California, on Thursday, August 17, at the Hang Heong Restaurant, Na 
308 Dupont Street, near Clay, at six P. M In behalf of 

Chui Sing Tong, President of Sara Tap Company. 

Khing Fong, President of Yueng Wo Company. 

Ting Sang, President of See Yap Company. 

Wae Nga, President of Ning Yeong Company. 

Chee Shum, President of Hop Wo Company. 

Mum Kuae, President of Yan Wo Company. 

In a previous chapter I have spoken of the Six Companies, to 
some one of which every Chinaman in the United States belongs. 
The six presidents are elective, largely salaried, and of high 
abilit3^ At the restaurant, they awaited us in rich native dress, 
with shaved heads and braided cues hanging almost to the ground. 
Upon our introduction by Mr. Carvalho, the official interpreter — 
born in Cliina of American parents — they bowed profoundly, and 
through him tendered assurances of their most distinguished con- 
sideration. 

The Hang Heong restaurant, of wood, two and-a-half stories 
high, was imported ready-made from China. The dining saloon 
is on the second floor. Its walls are hung with Chinese placards 
giving names and prices of dishes. 

Punctual to the hour we took our places at little round tables, 
each seating nine or ten persons, lix. Colflix, with the elite of our 
entertainers, occupied the central board. The table on his right, 
where Providence and Celestial etiquette placed Messrs. Bross, 
Bowles and myself, was surrounded by several other American 
gentlemen, and three presidents. 



438 



MORE THAN THREE HUNDRED DISHES. 



[1865. 



I liave sat at good men's feasts, both to the stalled ox without 
hatred, and the dinner of herbs where love was. I have enjoved 
the hospitalities of Mexican haciendas, Arapahoe lodges, Choctaw 
cabins, negro huts and rebel prisons; but this was a new gastro- 
nomic and social experience. 




CHIJJESE^DlNlS'EU IN b..M i-KANCIS^O. 



The food was all brought on, ready cut, in fine pieces, "We ate 
only with ivory chop-sticks — long, round, polished, and both held 
in the right hand. After learning the knack, one even takes up rice 
between them with surprising facility. There were three hundred 
and twenty-five dishes. Whatever was lacking in quantity was 
made up in quality, for the choicest cost one dollar per mouthful. 
Mr, Bowles partook from about a dozen ; Mr, Colfax from forty ; 
I suspended somewhere in the seventies ; but Gov. Bross relig- 



1865.] EXTRACTS FROM THE BI LL- OF- F A U E . 439 

ioLislj tasted every one. Here are a few: bamboo soup, bird's- 
nest soup, stewed sea-weed, stewed mushrooms, fried fungus, banana 
fritters, shark fins, shark sinews, reindeer sinews, dried Chinese 
oysters, pigeons, ducks, chickens, scorpions' eggs, watermelon 
seeds, fish in scores of varieties, many kinds of cake, and fruits ad 
infinitum. Tliere were no joints of any kind. Neither butter nor 
milk is used in cov)king. 

The Celestials drank champagne and claret as if to the manner 
born. At every sip, each guest bowed seriatim to every other per- 
son at his tablf\ A few dishes were unpalatable; but most were 
toothsome. The oj^sters and sharks' fins were especially savory. 
Bird's nest SOU} I is from a mucilage which certain eastern birds collect 
for building materials. Under an inviting name it would be pop- 
ular at the S'. Nicholas. 

In three hours and-a-half, strong, riehly-flavored black tea — the 
Chinese eschew green because it is artificially colored — was dis- 
tributed in tiniest cups ; and thus ended the first coursi'. 

Then three-quarters of an hour for cigarettes, digestion and 
oriental music. General McDowell and our party occupying a 
little recess, which contained a divan for opium-smoking, and was 
labeled: ' For the Guests of Honor.' The instruments were a hol- 
low shell, like a turtle's back, beaten with two sticks; a violin with 
bow confined between the strings and running like a cross-cut saw ; 
sometliing resembling a viol ; and something else like a banjo, the 
sliarp strings struck with a flint instead of the fingers. All were 
keyed very high, but their slirill music was not un|)leasing. 

As their rigid etiquette requires, the presidents now retired, after 
little kindly speeches and replies, dnlj^ interpreted. At the second 
course leading merchants took their places. The three at our 
table were young, intelligent men, with broad foreheads and quick 
eyes, who spoke excellent English. Gi"eat is Commerce ! A 
knowledge of the Celestial tongue is becoming indispensable even 
to American merchants; and a newspaper, printed both in Chinese 
and in English, indicates the mercantile bonds already woven be- 
tween the two peoples and countries. 

Our entertainers had strong individuality; but the lower classes 
all look alike to American eyes. "When one was on trial for 
murder, several white citizens were ready to swear that they saw 



440 'WIVES won't come.' [1865. 

him commit the crime ; but his counsel placed him among eleven 
other Chinamen, and not ont could select him from the group ! 

The merchants told us that all Chinese expect ultimately to re- 
turn home. To my question why they do not bring their wives 
here, one replied, with great emphasis: 'Wives won't come!' 
Tea was circulated several times and Chinese wine once, in crock 
ery cups holding about two thimblefuls. It is flavored with roses, 
intensely strong, and far more intv>xicating than brandy. With us 
it would be termed a cordial. 

After this course the merchants made their adieux ; and at 
dessert, others, less prominent, took their places. At the close, one, 
Toy Chew, made the first English speech ever attempted by a 
Chinaman on the Pacific coast. With point and fluency he com- 
plimented Mr. Colfax; touched u]3on the wonderful growth of the 
United States and the warm interest in it felt by all his race. 

At midnight ended this novel banquet — the world's oldest civ- 
ilization striking hands with its youngest. The occasion was cu- 
rious and memorable. Hereafter, upon every invitation, I shall 
sup with the Celestials, and say grace with all my heart. 

Soon after, I was compelled to bid adiv'U to my companions. 
An overland trip is a sort of limited matrimony. One is bound 
to his comrades for better or for worse ; if he select them in haste 
he will repent at leisure. The Atchisonians warned us in advance 
that no party ever crossed the continent without quarreling ; that 
for the first week we should ask each other : ' Has any gentleman 
seen my note-book?' but that thereafter the inquiry would be: 
'What d — d scoundrel has stolen my tooth brush ?' False proph- 
ets they ! For fifteen weeks and six thousand 'miles, we were 
a happy family, even when every day was Moving day. The lines 
had fallen to us in pleasant places. The trip had been full of 
interest and profit. 

For Mr. Colfax it proved one continuous ovation. Now, at its 
close, he looked back through a long vista of brass bands and ban- 
quets, private welcomes and public receptions. It was deserved ; 
for he made it solely to study the great interests of the West, 
which are national as well as local ; and he had always been their 
liberal and steadfast friend. It must be some compensation for the 
emptiness and thanklessness of public life, to be thus loved and 



1865.] 



MR. COLFAX AND HIS JOURNEY. 



441 



honored by pereonal strangers, in the remote, scattered homes of 
half a continent. 

In every position thus far, he has achieved signal success; and 
if his countrjmien ever call him to the highest place in their gift, 
he will fill it with credit to himself and honor to the nation. In 
private as in public he steals the heart of every man, woman and 
child — by no demagoguery or effort, but by simpJicity, natural. 




ness and overflowing kindness. He is a childless widower of 
forty-two. 

Governor Bross is fifty by the almanac ; but in vigor and fresh- 
ness of feeling thirty years younger. Like Old Virginia, he never 
tires. In Illinois campaigns he often makes one hundred speeches ; 



442 MY FRIENDS HOMEWAKD BOUND. [1865. 

the air of the rostrum is his native element. At San Francisco, a 
Fortj-niner is the pioneer of pioneers — one who came over with 
William the Conqueror — one of the Conscript Fathers. Said a 
Californian to me: ' Why, I could have sworn that Governor Bross 
was a Forty-niner! If he lived here we should send him at once 
to the United States Senate.' Of eastern birth, Massachusetts ed- 
ucation, and loug, successl'ul experience in Chicago journalism, he 
combines keen humor aiid mellow geniality with ripe judgment 
and most sterling worth. 

Mr. Bowles, by twenty years of that hard, patient work, without 
which comes no succesf, worth the having, has made his Republican 
the best })roviucial n nvspaper in the world. He is a compan- 
ionable gentleman ol foi'ty ; a close observer; a pointed, sug- 
gestive, 'meaty' vvr'ter. He has traveled over all Europe and 
leai-ned our own sf-ciety with unusual thoroughness and minute- 
ness. No temptati>>n, however seductive, can induce him to make 
a speech. There teas one other American of whom this was true 
— one whose wife calls him 'Mr. Grant' — but he alas! has fallen 
fi'om grace. 

On the second of September the firm was dissolved. The three 
senior member; had withdrawn, seceded, contrabanded. 'When 
last seen,' thfy were grouped on a huri-icane deck. 'Hip, 
hip, hurra!' (tieered the crowd. 'Boom!' thundered the gun. 
Groaned the engines, wheezed the steam pipes, creaked the pad- 
dle-wheels. Slowly rounded the great steamer fi'om the wharf; 
deftly she wended out from the forest of masts ; then moved like a 
strong swimmer, past the acres of shipping, past the wonderful 
city with a history like Aladdin's palace, past Alcatraz, through 
the Gold';n Gate — and they were Homeward Bound. So my 
friends had gone. Simple yet profound is the truth* of Enoch 
Arden: 'Things seen are greater than things heard.' This long 
and sometimes weary journeying, had added incomparably to their 
large usefulness; and they returned more intelligent, appreciative 
and enthusiastic friends of our new States, than they had ever been 
before'. 

California politics are an interesting study. United States Sen- 
ator John Conness, was curiously elected. There was a hot con- 
test, but he was not a candidate. Kivalry was bitter and money 




18G5.] CALIFORNIA POLITICS AS A STUDY. 443 

used freely. A friend of the leading aspirant was entrapped into 
offering live thousand dollars for the vote of a legislator, wlio was 
none too bonest, but in tlie interest of the other side. It oeeurred 
in the private room of the member, who had previously secreted 
two witnesses in his wardrobe; and they heard the proposition. 
The legislature, disgusted at the corruption, went outside of all 
the candidates and elected Conness, who was lying ill at home. 

The finest State-house in the Union 
is buildino' at Sacramento. It is of 
light sandstone ; and agreeable in archi- 
tecture and situation. A glance at the 
legislature, in session duiing one of my 
visits, was peculiarly entertaining. As 
in all western assemblies, most of 
the members were young. There was 
no prosing. The speaking was spirit- 
ed and pointed. The faces indicated goveuxor bross. 
that the standard of brains was a good 
deal higher than in most parliamentary bodies. 

Society in the new States has strong distinctive features. It 
makes the forehead broader and the heart warmer. After a few 
years' experience, even the most stupid will show 

' Tlow niucli tlie dunce wlio has been sent to roam 
Excels the dunce who has been kept at home.' 

The intelligence of the plainest working men, day laborers, 
miners, teamsters, is peculiarly noticeable. It is partly due to the 
sudden ups and downs. I rode on the box with a stage-driver 
who was working for one hundred dollars per month. Two years 
before, he owned the entire stage-line, and was worth one hundred 
thousand doHars. Next year, he may own it again, and the pres- 
ent proprietor be cracking the whip. The man who first found 
gold in California is now poor. So is the discoverer of the great 
Comstock silver mine — the richest in the world. 

The people are warm and demonstrative. One of them going 
back to the East is surprised at the general coldness and formality. 
lie fancies that his old friends have never thawed out from the 
freezing their fathers got on Plymouth rock. California is the 



444 



FEATURES OF CALIFORNIA SOCIETY 



[1865. 



culmination of all that is best and pleasantest in frontier life. The 
people curiously combine shrewdness and enthusiasm. They go 
fast, have the best, and despise the expense. Parsimony is the 
Charybdis which they shun with so much terror that a good many 
go to pieces upon the Scylla of Extravagance. Wo to him who 
is niggardly, and to the new-comer who puts on airs ! 

According to Emerson, great cities take the nonsense out of 
us. So does frontier life. It teaches practical sagacity, rare 
judgment of men, quick detection of shams, ready weighing of a 
stranger's capacity, and generous trust in the trustworthy. 

The aboriginal Californians 
lived upon worms and grasshop- 
pers, and were most wretched 
and degraded of all barbarians. 
The world does not contain a 
more cordial, whole-souled, gener- 
ous people than the Californians 
of to-dav. Their hearts are as 
large as their mountains and as 
warm as their climate. Time will 
correct faults and supply deficien- 
cies; the next generation ought to 
see here the best average society 
in the Union, and therefore in the world. 

Already the State cherishes the names of her young heroes — 
young because the dead can never grow old. Starr King, Brod- 
erick and Baker, repose in Lone Mountain cemeter}'-, over- 
looking the Golden Gate, and the city of their adojDtion and their 
love. 

In the matter of diet, our first San Francisco experience was 
amusing. We arrived at midnight; and before two o'clock the 
next afternoon, in addition to breakfast, we had been beguiled 
into participating in four 'little lunches.' By this time we began 
to realize that luncheon is the meal of the Pacific coast; that the 
proper time for it is at any hour of the day or night; and that 
whenever the stranger is invited to eat ' a bite ' or take ' a little 
luncheon,' it means an elaborate meal, with choice fruits, and ofteq 
with rare wines. 




SAJIUEL BOWLES. 



1865.] 



AMERICAN WIT AND HUMOR, 



445 



The new country is prolific of new words and phrases. In con- 
versation, San Francisco is shortened to 'Frisco.' At first it 
sounded droll enough; but we did in Fi'isco as the Friscans did, 
and soon adopted their nomenclature. A 'bilk' is an impostor, 
from the old Gothic verb 'to bilk.' The noun is common in 
England, but new, I think, in the United States. To 'slop ov^^r,' 
is to make some foolish mistake, run into wild eccentricitj', be ill- 
balanced. 'That's the way I put it up,' signifies, 'the way I con- 
struct or build up my theory.' Sometimes the provincialisms 
degenerate into slang. 'I don't see it,' (incredulity.) 'You get!' 
(begone,) 'You bet ['(strong affirmation,) and the rest of that large 
family, all flourish. 

There is a story of a bur- 
glar, who at midniglit climbed 
up to a chamber-window, and 
cautiousl}' opened it. Tlie oc- 
cupant, chancing to bo awake, 
crept softl\^ to the window, 
and just as the robber's face 
appeared, presented t'.ie smooth 
muzzles of two revolvers, with 
the injunction : 

'You get!' 

'You bet!' replied the 
liouse-breaker, dro])j)ing and 
running. There is no more 
pithy dialogue on record. 

Beyond question the Amer- 
icans are the wittiest and 

most humorous people in the world. And on the Pacific coast, 
one hears, in eveiy-day conversation, more clever sayings and 
pungent retorts than anywhere else. Shall I record a few to con 
elude the chapter? 

A gentleman who affected great plainness of habit and dress was 
elected to the United States Senate. One of his neighbors 
remarked: 

'He will instantly have the cobbler put patches on all his new 
boots, to show that his new position has not made him proud.' 

29 




YOC GET.' 



446 



A STRING OF CALIFORNIA STORIES. 



[1865. 



A candidate for another leading office had a very small head 
and enormous limbs. Said one of his political opponents: 

'■He is certain to be beaten. Tliis State will never elect a man 
who wears a number-four hat and number-thirteen boots I' 

A notorious exaggerator, after describing an impossible tree, 
said to his auditor: 

' I don't wonder that you look incredulous. I would not have 
believed it myself, if I had not seen it.' 

'Well,' replied the dry listener, '/don't see it!' 
An official surveyor was reputed greedy and avaricious, refus- 
ing to survey property, as his duties required, unless the owner 
would give hira an interest in the real estate. Suddenly he was 
removed from office, when one of his friends declared that his head 

was taken off because he opposed Senator . 

* O no,' was the reply ; ' that was not the reason.' 

' Tlien why was he removed ?' 

' Because he wanted to be monarch of all he surveyed.' 

A senatoi'ial candidate was 
noted for his slovenly attire. 
A lady said of him: 'Mr. 
Blank is really the best man ; 
and I should like to see him 
elected if the legislature would 
giv^e him instructions.* 

'What instructions?' asked 
her interlocutor. 

' Instructions to put on a 
clean shirt once a week, and 
wash his face every morning !' 
An ex-governor and ex-sen- 
ator was a passenger on the 
wrecked steamer Golden Eule. 
'What did you save?' in- 
quired a friend. lie replied : 
'I saved nothing but my character.' 

' Then,' retorted the wag, ' you must have landed at San Fran- 
cisco with less baggage than any other man who ever came to the 
Pacific coast V 




' YUC iiKT. 



18G5.] THE RAW WINDS OF SAX FRANCISCO. 447 



CHAPTER XXXVII. 

The general climate of California is equable and balmy, with 
no snow save in mountain regions; and air so dry that even in 
Sacramento where the mercury sometimes rises to one hundred 
and twenty degrees, the heat is less prostrating than that of our 
eastern summers. The interior is very kind to bronchial and 
pulmonar}' complaints. 

But San Francisco is a marked exception. The mean tempera- 
ture of Julv varies only eight degrees from that of January. Ice 
is never produced, and thin clothing never worn. ]\Iany houses 
are hidden by luxuriant vines and shrubbery; and throughout 
the winter, delicate flowers grow in the open air, upon bleakest 
hills swept by ocean winds. Roses, fuchsias and licliotropes glad- 
den the eye at Christmas and New Year. 

Yet San Francisco is one of the very worst climatfoss on the 
continent for sensitive throats and weak lungs. The incisive 
winds, commencing at noon and continuing far into night, seem 
to be the chief cause. I found a fire in ni}' room essential to 
comfort, on the twentieth of August — often a more severe month 
than December. The winds are stronger in summer than in 
winter; but to infirm throats or lungs they are dangerous at all 
seasons. It is not simply that the air is salt; for many who are 
robust during ocean voj'ages cannot endure sea-winds blowing 
upon the land. 

The Golden Gate, the outlet of San Francisco harbor, is a 
break in the Coast Range mountains. Through its narrow portals 
rushes a current of air like the blast of a furnace, passing up the 
valley of the Sacramento to supply the basins west of the Sierra 
Nevadas, It penetrates every fiber of the body, and cuts into 
weakened chests and throats like a sharp knife. 



448 



A CLIMATE STIMULATING LIKE WINE, 



[1865. 



But to persons in sound health the city air is pleasant and 
bracing. Indeed it stimulates like wine. Her climate which 
makes the blood bound and the nerves tingle, is doubtless respon- 
sible for much of the ' fastness' of San Francisco. It brings back 
the buoyancy of childhood, hi the end it must shorten life ; for 




SAN FRANCISCO FROM THE BAY, IN 1847. 

human, like mechanical machinery, cannot increase in speed with- 
out increase of friction ; the faster it runs the sooner it wears out. 

The novelties of the city never cease. One is constantly re- 
minded that twenty years ago here were onl}'- sand-hills, with the 
crumbling cathedral and rude adobe dwellings of a little Spanish 
post. Every morning he looks out in fresh surprise upon the 
teeming life of a great metropolis, with stately blocks of brick 
and stone, railroads, street-cars, gas, markets, exchanges, elegant 
residences, costly school-houses, imposing churches and generous 
charities. 



1SG5.J FIRES AND EAKTHQUAKE3 UNAVAILING. 449 

More sti'iking still is its magnificent harbor, with miles of 
steamers and sailing vessels — a harbor which has contained at one 
time within its anchorage more ships than did ever New York, 
Liverpool, or London. Our generation has seen no second mij-acle 
like the origin and growth of San Francisco. 

It is far more cosmopolitan than any other American city except 
New York. It has four hotels which would be creditable to any 
metropolis in the world. At these, and along Montgomery street, 
one sees that curious mingling of faces from ever}' quarter of the 
2;lobe, which is characteristic of Broadwav. Before leaving home, 
I could remember onl}^ one personal acquaintance in California. 
But on arriving I was surprised to meet scores of ftmiiliar coun- 
tenances — men whom I supposed dead, men whom I fancied still 
in the East, and men long forgotten. x\s good Bostonians when 
they die are said to go to Paris, all other Americans good and bad 
must go to California. 

Tlie heavy earthquake of October, 1865, depressed property tor 
the time, and frightened a few residents into leaving. The foiling 
chimneys and walls did not kill a single person ; though some high 
buildings were cracked from top to bottom, every loose article 
shaken from tables and mantles, and one fissure, as large as the 
head of a floui--barrel, left in the earth. 

But San Francisco is the inevitable business center foi all the 
interior west of Salt Lake; and for the long coast from Behring's 
Straits to Patagonia. A brisk trade also is springing up with the 
Sandwich Islands, Japan and China. 

Nature ordained this queen of the Pacific a great metropolis— the 
second city on the American continent. Burned to the ground 
six times within eighteen months, her growth was not stopped, 
nor her ])rosperity impaired ; and if a new earthquake were to 
shake down every building, not leaving one stone upon another, 
the town would soom be as large and as vigorous as ever. 

I can but barely touch upon the manufacturing, farming, fruit- 
growing and mining of this wonderful young State. 

Manufactures in iron and wool are further advanced than an}*- 
others. Some cotton cloth is already made; and California, Ari- 
zona, Utah^ Sandwich Islands and South America will supply the 
raw staj>le. 



450 



PREJUDICE AGAINST THE CHINESE. 



[1S65. 



The Mission Woolen Mills, near the old Mision Dolores which 
John Phosnix immortalized in his unequaled burlesque upon Gov- 
ernment railroad surveys, are six years old, with a capital of eight 
hundred thousand dollars. At first they were a failure, owing to 
the high prices of labor ; but since the introduction of Chinamen, 
content with one dollar and twent3'-five cents per da}', (white labor 
costs about three dollars,) they prove a great success. 

There is wide-spread prejudice against the Chinese. In the 
mines they pay a monthly tax of four dollars per head for the 
privilege of w-orking, and thereby swell immensely the State 




'•"♦t.UV.vk ^t 



SAX FRANCISCO !N 1849. 



revenues; but they ai'o often driven away, ^fau}' believe they 
have no rights which white men are bound to respect; and some 
leading citizens advocate their total expulsion from our shores. 
Three hundred dollars is the ideal 'pile' of a laboring China- 
man; and when he has attained it, he is ready to return to his 
wives and children in the Celestial land for which his heart never 
ceases to yearn. lie has no desire to become an American citizen ; 
he does not settle, he only stays. Is it because he has come east- 
Avard, while the irrevocable fiat of Nature requires that emigration 
shall move only toward the setting sun? 



1865.] MISSION MILLS, CHURCn, YOSEMITE VIEWS. 451 

Even the wealthy Chinese merchants expect to return to the 
home of their nativity. Tiie masses are almost invariably able 
to read and write their own language. Their imitative capacity is 
wonderful; they can do whatever they have seen done. They 
make admirable operatives, woi-king with the exactness of ma> 
cbinery itself; and will yet be largely employed in running quartz- 
crushers, and in general manufactures. 

At the Mission Mills I examined finer, softer, heavier woolen 
blankets than I ever saw elsewhere. The San Francisco factories 
have supplied our army with some of its best. All their work is 
of the highest qualit3% Throughout the mines of Arizona, Idaho, 
Nevada and ]\[ontana the demand is almost exclusively for 
California and Oregon woolens, on account of their superiority 
to those from the Atlantic coast. 

I glanced into the Mission church, built by the Spaniards two 
hundred years ago. It has adobe walls, three feet in thickness, 
adorned by the cheap paintings and images with which early 
Jesuit missionaries excited the imaginations of simple natives. 
In the graveyard beside it lies buried James Casey, murderer of 
James King of William, editor of the Balletm. This homicide 
was the immediate cause of the fiiraous vigilance committee of 
1856, at whose hands Casey was hanged. An imposing marble 
monument bears his dying words: 'May God forgive my perse- 
cutors!' Why do the most graceless scoundrels, at the point 
of death, often display so much more piety than anybody 
else? 

Some witty writer defines Photography as 'justice without 
mercy.' In this art, San Francisco has made enviable progress. 
It is largely due to the wonderfully clear air. If the ancients, in 
the childhood of the human race, the world's morning twilight, 
had such an atmosphere and such an emp3^rean, no wonder they 
thought the blue sky the floor of heaven. California photographs 
are flir clearer than the East can produce ; and some of the large 
views of Yosemite, (pronounced Yo-sf??n-i-te,) are beyond compari- 
son the finest sun-pictures ever taken — even excelling the famed 
photographs of Italy. 

The placer mining of California is nearly exhausted. The 
quartz mining is but just begun. Cheapness of machinery, labor 



452 CALIFOR>^IA QUAETZ-MINIXG AlsD FAKMING. [1SC5. 

and living, give these lodes great advantages over those of more 
distant regions. Quartz containing eight or nine dollars of gold to 
the ton, pays well ; while in portions of Nevada, Utah, Montana 
and Idaho, ore will not justify crushing unless one hundred dol- 
lars can be extracted fi'om each ton. The Pacific railway will 
pai-tially equalize this; but can never do so fully. In general the 
California quartz-gold is fine and easily worked.' Almost half of 
our mineral product is from this State. 

Mining is a lottery • tilling the earth is a certainty, and frugal, 




IXTERIOK CF JtlSSIOX CiU'IiCH. 



industrious formers grow rich. About one-third of all the land 
is suscej^tible of culture; and the soil is generally good, though 
not equal to the !^[ississippi valley. There is no depth at which 
it gives out. In most localities, with early sowing and planting, 
little irrigation is required. In the Sncramento valley and other 
sections Avild oats grow InxJiriantly. In the San Jose valley a 
field ])rodiiced a hundred bushels of wheat to the acre, and the 
next year yielded a 'volunteer crop ' (withoat plowing oi so-w- 
uig,) of sixty bushels to the acre. 




CALIFORNIA FRUITS AND VKGETABLKS. Page. 45:5. 



18G5.] GRAIN, VEGETABLES AND FllUIT TREES. 433 

Of the entire agricultural product, barley reaches thirty -nine per 
cent. — a larger proportion than in any other part of the world; — 
wheat, thivty-four per cent; oats, ten; potatoes, ten; and corn 
only four. Sixty bushels of barley to the acre is not uncommon; 
and a single acre has produced one hundred and forty-nine 
bushels. Canning says shrewdly, that nothing is so false as facts, 
except figures; but this statement is on trustworthy authorit}'. 

The I'oot vegetables thrive wonderfully. There have been 
exhibited at the agricultural fairs, an onion weighing seventy- 
seven ounces avoirduiJois, twenty-two inches in circumference; 
a turnip, twenty -six pounds; a tomato, twenty-six inches in 
cii'cnmfcrence; cabbage-heads, forty-three to fifty-three pounds; 
a watermelon, sixty-live pounds; a red beet, one luuulred and 
eigliteen pounds, live feet long by one foot in diameter; a squash, 
two hundred anil sixtj'^-five pounds. 

Fruit trees are twice as large as in our middle States at the 
same age. In one year the cherry has grown fourteen feet high; 
the pear ten feet; and the stem of the peach tree three inches in 
diameter. One peach tree in a year from the bud grew eight feet 
high, with a trunk circumference of eight and-a-half inche?s. A 
p'aeh twig a foot long, stuck in the ground in 1858, bore fruit the 
next year. The apple tree bears in the second or third year from 
the bud ; and apples have been exhibited weighing two and-a- 
half pounds. Tlie}' lack the sharp, agreeable flavor which New 
England and Oregon impart. But the enormous peaches, the 
lieh pears, the strawberries and grapes, which grow with incredi- 
ble profusion, have a peculiarly rich and generous taste that lin- 
gers lovingly on the palate. 

The California fruits and vegetables for the full-page engraving 
in tliis volume, were hastily collected in the Pacific market, San 
Francisco, on the twenty-eighth of September. Thej are not unusual 
specimens; but can be duplicated in all the great fruit markets 
any morning during six months of the year. The human figure, 
nearly six feet high, was included in the photograph to show the 
relative size of the vegetable productions. The two black beets 
on each side rest upon the floor, and their tops^ standing erect, 
would nearly reach the man's' bead. They were dug^ before attiiin- 
ing full grov.'th, and weighed thirty-eight and fifty-nine pounds. 



451- MAMMOTH PRODUCTIONS OF CALIFORNIA. [1865. 

One of the pears exhibited (a Duchess d'Angouleme) weighs 
thirty ounces; specimens of the same variety weighing seventy 
ounces have been raised. The apples (Gloria Mundi) weigh from 
twent3^-three to twentj'-nine and-a-half ounces. The corn has 
twenty-four rows of kernels to the ear, with four ears on a stalk. 
The bunch of grapes (Tokay) weighs eleven pounds. There is a 
sunflower blossom twenty-fcur inches across the face ; an egg- 
plant fruit twenty-six inches in circumference ; a cabbage fifty- 
four inches in circumference; quinces weighing thirty ounces 
each ; large radishes and sweet potatoes. 

Grapes fresh from the vines are found on California tables from 
July till December. Fruit at breakfast is one of the most delicious 
customs of the country. The morning meal begins with grapes, 
figs, peaches, strawberries, and pears. Of the first, one never 
tires. I ate grapes statedly at breakfast^ luncheon, and dinner, 
and incidentally at intervals through the da}^ and evening. 

In the oi'chard of Wilson Flint, near Sacramento, I saw hun- 
dreds of pear trees, seven years from the graft, bearing sixty 
pounds of fruit each. Fruits, vegetables, and grain are invai'iably 
sold by weight. I noticed a cluster of six pears growing on one 
twig, almost as close as they could be packed in a fruit dish, and 
each nearly as large as a man's fist. This was the twenty-sixth of 
August; and the graft which bore them was put in during the pre- 
vious April — onl}^ four months before. It was the most wonderful 
sight of my entire journe3^ Jonah's gourd ceases to be the sym- 
bol of miraculous growth. 

In the same orchard hundreds of fig trees bent under rich pur- 
ple fruit. Olives, pomegranates, lemons, and apricots grow in 
various sections. Tlie State also contains about twenty-five hun- 
dred orange trees. When six or eight 3^ears old they produce 
fruit, and continue bearing for half a century. At fourteen years 
they yield from one thousand to three thousand oranges per tree. 
They blossom early in spring ; the fruit is ripe the next February, 
and if left on the branches keeps until May. 

Bunches of grapes weighing six pounds may be found in almost 
any market; and a bunch of seventeen pounds was exhibited at 
one fair. Two hundred varieties are cultivated ; the most delicate 
vines from the Atlantic slope, Europe, Asia, and Africa, flourish 



1865.] ORANGES VINEYARDS AND WINES. 455 

in this kindly soil. The fruit-growers begin to export large quan- 
tities of raisins and preserved tigs. With the completion of the 
railroad, they expect to supply eastern markets daily with fresh 
Pacific grapes forwarded in close cars, of dry, even temperature. 

The grape crop never fails, and averages double the yield per 
acre of the vineyards of Ohio, France, and Germany. The 
Catawba, though smaller than some varieties, excels all others in 
flavor. The vineyards of the State cover upward of ten thousand 
acres. The largest, in Sonoma, contains one hundred acres. The 
wine product is between one and two millions of gallons annually, 
^fany varieties of still and sparkling are produced. Angel- 
ica and ]\[uscatel are sweet, still wines — the latter very rich, and 
with a flavor like Tokay. The port and the hock are sometimes 
excellent. California champagne, claret, sherry, wine-bitters, and 
brandies are largely produced. But in general the people 
themselves prefer imported wines ; and often their native varieties 
taste new, raw, and ' heady.' They are better in New York than 
in San Francisco. The long sea voj'age makes them smoother; 
and age gives them flavor. Wine making is too young here to be 
perfect. Manufacturers of experience in Ohio, Missouri, and 
European vinej'ards, have not yet learned how to treat the 
most fiimiliar grapes modified by this climate and soil. But all 
these difficulties will be overcome; one day this will be a very 
leading branch of commerce, and the wines of California will 
excel those of all other countries on the globe. 

Among valueless vegetable productions, the cactus impresses 
strangers, by the beauty of its flowers, its many varieties, and its 
enormous size. Frequently it grows to the hight of eight 
feet. 

The Wells-Fargo express, which combines the mail, banking, 
and express business, and has about one hundred offices, pervades 
every railwa}'', steamboat, and stage route, and every town and 
mining camp on the Pacific coast. It illustrates the superiority 
of private enterprise. W^hen its messengers run on the very 
steamer, or the same railway carriage, with those of the United 
States mail, three-fourths of the business men intrust it with their 
letters, which are invariably delivered in advance of the Govern- 
ment consignments. In San Francisco, Mr. Colfiix dropped a 



450 



AN IMMENSE PRIVATE ENTERPRISE. 



[1865. 



note into the mail, making an engagement for the next week with 
a gentleman residing a mile from our hotel. Three days after the 
appointed time his friend appeared and explained: 

'I have but just re- 
ceived your letlei-. 
Why didn't vou send 
it by Wells-Fargo?' 

To found and sj-s- 
tematize a great enter- 
prise like this, ex- 
tending over lialf a 
continent, new, thinly- 
settled, Willi poor 
means of ccMnmunica- 
tion, alnnii" routes in- 
f'Stcd I)}' robbers and 
Indians, requires more 
capacity than to 'run' 
the Government of 
the United States in 
ordinary times, I 
asked the gentleman who has chiefly conducted it: 
'What new lessons has your experience taught you?' 
His answer pleasantly confirms one's faith in huni;ui nature : 
'It has taught me to trust men.'' 

The uniform charge for delivering letters is twelve and a-half 
cents. The com])any carries \\w\\\ only in stanipcd envelopes, 
thus paying a Government tax of three cents on every half-ounce. 
Yet the post office department constantly endeavoi's to sujipress it, 
Twcnty-fivo 3'ears ago, when postage was twenty -five cents for 
distances over four hundred miles, and Hall's express carried 
letters from Boston to New York for five cents, the authorities 
did their utmost to stop him; but with Daniel Webster for his 
counsel, he defeated them and hastened the era of cheap postage. 

When the operations of the Wells-Fargo company were eon- 
fined to the Pacific coast and the steamers between San Francisco 
and New York, it transjiorted twenty-three hundred thousand let- 
ters anauallj.. Two and a-quarter millions of writers paid nine 




CALi:x;iixi V cactus. — fi;o.m a vi^o.OJiLvi'ii. 



1865.] THE SAN FRANCISCO NEWSPAPERS. 457 

and a-half cents extra not to have their letters pass through the 
Circumlocution Office ! What stronger proof of the folly of Gov- 
ernment's conveying letters? It might with as much propriety sell 
groceries, convey heavy freights, or deliver washing. Abolish the 
post office department. ' Leave this, like other carrying trade, open 
to private competition, and the mail service of the United States 
would be performed fifty per cent, cheaper and one hundred per 
cent, better than it is to-da3^ 

The San Fi-ancisco AUa * California and the Evening Bulletin 
print from seven thousand to nine thousand daih^, and earn from 
tw^entv thousand to forty thousand dollars per annum. Their 
terms (in specie) are, eighteen dolhirs per year for the dailies; 
five dollars for the weeklies; single copies, ten cents. Adver- 
tising rates are very high. The Sacramento Union, also success- 
ful, is one of the very best newspapers on the continent. The 
Alta once cleared eighty thousand dollars in ten months. It is 
the pioneer journal, the Californian, from which it sprang, first 
appearing in AEonterey, on the 15tli of August, 1846, immediately 
after the hoisting of the American flao: in northern California. 
The next year it removed to San Francisco, which then contained 
less than five hundred inhabitants. Its first issue was about as 
large as two pages of this book, and was printed upon brown 
wrapping paper. It was put in type in an old Spanish office; 
and the fact that there is no W in the Castilian compelled the 
clumsy manufacture of that letter from two Vs. Part of its con- 
tents were in Spanish and part in English. The following is a 
literal cop}^ of an explanatory paragraph from the editor: 

'Our Alphahet. — Our type is a spani.^h font picked up here in a cloiPter, and has 
no W's [Ws] in it, as there is none in the Spanish alphabet. I have sent to the 
sandwich Islands for this letter, in the mean time vve must use two Vs. Our paper 
at present is that used for wrapping segars; in due time vve will have something 
better: our object is to establise a press in California, and this vve shall in all proba^ 

* When American forces captured the country, it was in two divisions — Bnja (lower) 
and Alta (upper) California. After a few years the Americanized portion became 
known throughout the world simply as California and the adjective was dropped. 
But the peninsula is still known as 'Lower California.' The word 'California' was 
first applied by Cortcz. He obtained it from Spanish novels of his day, in one of 
which it was the name of a heroine, and in another, of an imaginary island. 



458 



A BIT OF HISTORICAL RECORD. 



[1865. 



bility be able to accomplish. The absence of my partner for the last three months 
and my buties as Alcaldd here have dedrived our little paper of some of those atten- 
tions which I hope it will liereafter receive. Walter Coltox.' 

I am indebted to Albert S. Evans, of San Francisco, for tlie 
sixth issue of the Cah'fornian^ September 19th, 18-16, which says: 

' California is now lost forever to Mexico ; not a shadow of hope can remain that 
she can recover a foot of the Territory, and we do not believe that one inhabitant in 
ten, really regrets the result.' 



CITICFLAR. — Ton are hereby advised that war exists between the United States 
of North America and Mexico, and are cautioned to guard against an attack from 
Mexican privateers, and all vessels under the Mexican tla^. 

' The Territory of California lias been talvcn possession of b}' the forces under my 
command, and now belongs to the United States, and you will find safe anchorage 
and protection in the harbor of San Francisco during any season of the j-ear. 

'R. F. STOCKTON, 
(Commodore and Commander-in-Chief of the Naval Forces of the United States in the 
Pacific Ocean, and Governor and Conimander-in-Chief of tlie Territory of California.' 



The first piece of domestic gold in the United States is said 
to have been found in Meadow creek, North Carolina, in 1799. 
Now, our annual product of the precious metals reaches about one 
hundred and ten millions of dollars annuallj'; from eighty to 
ninety millions, gold; the residue silver. Eighty-five per cent, of 
the gross amount is from quartz mining. 

In the early days of California, before the establishment of the 

Government Mint, much gold of 
private coinjige circulated, to meet 
absolute business wants. Many 
gold bars, 'slugs,' and five, ten, 
twenty, and fifty dollar coins were 
issued in 18'±9 50. These coinages 
have now disappeared, and are rare, 
even as curiosities. The illustra- 
tion is an exact representation of 
one of the 'slugs,' issued from the 
United States assay office in 1850. Having no alloy in its com- 
position, it was ver}^ soft, and wasted rapidly by wearing down. 







AN KAKLY t'ALlHJKNIA CUlX. 



1865.] HALF AN HOUR IN THE MINT. 459 

The United States Branch Mint is one of the most interestins; 
features of San Francisco. The crude metal, received in bars, is 
melted and mingled, two parts of silver with one of gold ; then 
poured into water, where it cools in fragments like suddenly- 
cooled lead, or popped corn. It is thus broken into fine pieces, 
that acids may work upon it more readily — as fire kindles shav- 
ings and chips more easily than solid sticks of wood. The nitric 
acid turns the silver, copper, and lead into liquid ; but leaves 
the gold a dirty brown powder. We saw a rough pile of this, 
looking as valueless as brick-dust; but worth three hundred thou- 
sand dollars. Next, the gold has the water squeezed out by an 
immense weight; is molded into bars; and I'olled into long, thin, 
narrow strips. From these the round coins are cut, then milled, 
stamped on both sides, and corrugated — all by machinery. Me- 
tallic fingers seize each piece and place it under the stamps, where 
it is subjected to a pressure of one hundred and sixty tons. 

Another machine counts the coins, picking out five dollars 
worth of coppers in one minute, with perfect exactness. Here 
are scales, too, which will weigh one four-thousandth of a grain. 

Our coins of precious metal contain nine parts of gold and silver 
to one of copper. Common salt and zinc are used in hardening 
the liquid silver and separating it from lead and copper. At night, 
the employees all leave their working clothing in the mint. When 
these garments are worn out, they are burned, and the ashes 
washed, to save the gold. The water in which the workmen wash 
their hands is also carefully drained off' for the same purpose. 
Through these two sources about fifteen thousand dollars per 
annum is saved. Practically, there is no loss. In 186-1, upon 
:i coinage of twenty-one millions, the deficit was only two thou- 
sand dollars, though at the rates allowed by Government for 
wastage it would have reached seventy thousand. 

For the excitement of strangers, the workmen pour a glowing, 
red-hot stream of melted gold into their hands for a moment, and 
then empty it out, without receiving a burn. The perspiration 
protects them, as plumbers thrust their fingers, wet with cold 
water, into liquid lead, and smelters, into molten iron. 

Until the completion of the Pacific railway no man living can 
comprehend the vastness and variety of our mineral resources 



4G0 THE GREAT PACIFIC RAILWAY. [1865. 

between British Columbia and Mexico, and stretchinsr from tbe 
eastern wall of the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific. 

The road will protect our military interests. Whenever we can 
transport men and munitions from the Mississippi valley to San 
Francisco in one Vv^eek the Monroe Doctrine will enforce itself. 

It will revolutionize trade and finance. Tiavelers in every 
country will require exchange on New York instead of London. 
It will give our continent — 'its Atlantic front looking upon 
Europe and its Pacific front looking upon Asia ' — the carrying 
trade of the world. The light, costly silks, teas, and spices of the 
Orient, rich in barbaric pearl and gold, will seek this route for our 
markets and for tlje old world. 

IL will strengthen us twcially. T/ie bane of new countries is the 
absence of the restrainit;g and humanizing influence of women. 
Tlie oldest States have a surplus of women ; the newest suft'er for 
them. With cheap, easy, rapid communication tlie laws of de- 
mand and supply will correct the evil. 

It will strengthen us politically. There is infinite pathos in 
hearing everybody on the Pacific coast, from children to gray- 
haired men, speak of the East as 'home.' Still, at the outset of 
the great rebellion, a large party favored a Pacific republic. It 
was ]iromptiy put under foot; and California, debarred from send- 
ing her iron, sent her gold to the front. She gave more money 
proportionately to the great charities of the war than any other 
State. The Pacific coast contributed to the Sanitarj' Commission 
alone almost a million and-a-half of dollars. 

Great indeed must be the vitality of the republic when the 
warm blood from its heart pulsates to these remote extremities ; 
yet we cannot afford to repeat the experiment. 

' Mountains interposed 
Make enemies of nations wlio had else, 
Like kindred drops, been mingled into one.' 

Do awa}' with isolation ; cut through the mountains! This en- 
chanter's wand will make New York acknowledged queen of cities 
and San Francisco her eldest sister — this magic key will unlock 
our Golden Gate, and send surging through its rocky portals a 
world-encircling tide of travel, commerce, and Christian civilization. 



1865.] EXCURSION ON THE PACIFIC RAILROAD. 461 



CHAPTER XXXVIII. 

Ex-governor Leland Stanford, president of the Central 
Pacific Eailroad, and tlae other gentlemen engaged in building it, 
were kind enough to organize a pleasant excursion that I might 
see the progress of their great work. By the Congressional char- 
ters, this company constructing the line from Sacramento Cali- 
fornia eastward, and the Union Pacific working from Omaha 
Nebraska westward, will each own and run as much road as it 
can build ; so both are engaged ili a hard race for Salt Lake. 

Each corporation receives in Government bonds sixteen thou- 
sand dollars, thirty-two thousand dollars, or fortj'-eight thousand 
dollars for every mile of road finished — sixteen thousand where 
the route is level and grading light; thirty-two thousand among 
the foot-hills, and forty-eight thousand in the Rock}^ j\[ountains 
and the Sierra Nevadas. 

Each company also acquires absolutely thirteen thousand acres 
of land per mile along its line ; and is allowed to issue first mort- 
gage bonds in equal amount to the Government subsid}' — the 
mortgage upon which these company-bonds are based having pri- 
ority as a lien upon the property of the road over the mortgage 
given to the Government itself In addition, the California corpo- 
ration has a donation of nearly half a million dollars in bonds from 
San Francisco, and thirty acres of valuable land, in the cit}^ limits, 
from Sacramento. Ko other enterprise in our country was ever so 
magnificently endowed. Ultimately the company expect to lay 
their track to Oakland, just across the bay from San Francisco; at 
present the western terminus is Sacramento.* 

* San Francisco to Salt Lake City by steamer, railway and stage routes: eight hun- 
dred and fifty miles. Sacramento to summit of Sierras, by rnilwa}' route : one hundred 
and five miles. Summit to Salt Lake Citj- : five hundred and twenty miles. 
30 



462 



TWELVE THOUSAND CHINESE LABORERS. [1865. 



Ten miles east of Sacramento the track is only one hundred and 
ninety feet above sea-level ; at the crossing of the summit it is 
seven thousand feet. A peculiarly favorable route, where no ele- 
vation is lost after the climbing begins, alone enables it to rise 
nearly seven thousand feet in ninety -five miles. 

The highest grade (one hundred and sixteen feet to the mile) 
just equals the sharpest ascent on the Baltimore and Ohio road. 
But it extends only three miles; and no other grade will exceed 
one hundred and six feet to the mile. 

Theearsnow (1807) run nearly tothe summit of the Sierras. At the 

time of my visit the terminus was 
Colfax, fifty-five miles east of 
Sacramento. Thence we took 
horses for twelve miles. Upon 
this little section of road four 
thousand laborers were at work 
— one-tenth Irish, the rest Chi- 
nese. They were a great army 
laj'ing siege to Nature in her 
strongest citadel. The rugged 
mountains looked like stupendous 
ant-hills. They swarmed with Ce- 
lestials, sliovelimr, wheelinsr, cart- 
ing, drilling and blasting rocks and earth, while their dull, moony 
eyes stai-ed out from under immense basket-hats, like umbrellas. 
At several dining-camps we saw hundreds sitting on the ground, 
eating soft boiled rice with chop-sticks as fast as terrestrials could 
with soup-ladles. Irish laborers received thirty dollars per month 
(gold) and board ; Chinese, thirty-one dollars, boarding themselves. 
After a little experience the latter were quite as efficient and far 
less troublesome. 

The Hudson Bay Company in its palmy days was compelled to 
import laborers from the Sandwich Islands; and without the Chi- 
nese the California end of the great national thoroughfare must 
have been delayed for many years. Twelve thousand are now 
employed upon it. 

Cape Horn is a huge mountain around whose side the track 
winds upon a little shelf seven hundred feet above valley and 




LELAXD STANFORD. 



1865.] HORRIBLE FATE OF THE DONNER PARTY. 463 

stream-bed. At the west end of the road redwood trees are used 
for ties; in the mountains, spruce and tamarack. 

At Gold Kun a six-horse coach awaited us. Our day's ride was ' 
up a graded winding road, commanding an endless sweep of dense 
forest and grand mountain, among graceful tamaracks, gigantic 
pines and pyramidal firs. 

Immense barns beside the mountain houses attest the length 
and severity of the winters. At many points we found the sur- 
veyors awaiting our coach to receive their lettei's and newspapers. 
The x\merican pioneer can dispense with his dinner, but not with 
his mental pabulum. 

We reached the summit two hours after dark, when its wild, 
gloom}' grandeur is far more impressive than by day. It is 
boundless mountain piled on mountain — unbroken granite, bare, 
verdureless, cold and gray. 

Throuo-h the bitino; nio-ht air we were whirled down the eastern 
slope for three miles to Donner lake, blue, shining, and sprinkled 
with stars, while from the wooded hill beyond glared an Indian 
fire like a great fiendish eyeball. The lake is an exquisite body 
of water, though less impressive than Tahoe ; and the reflections 
of snowy peak, pine forest, clear sky, and minute twig and leaf 
in its depths, seem almost miraculous. The illustration, as faith- 
ful to nature as artist and engraver can make it, is far Jess vivid 
than the original photograph. In that, concealing the boat, fig- 
ures and trees in the foreground-water, it is almost impossible to 
decide which side up the picture should be — which are the real 
hills, snow and forest, and which the reflection. 

Donner lake is named from the Donner party of sixty Illinois 
emigrants, en route for Oregon, snowed in here in 1846. Know- 
ing nothing of the climate, they attempted to cross too late, and 
were imprisoned by inexorable winter. The logs of one of their 
cabins; and stumps, twelve feet high, of trees which they cut oif at 
the snow-surface, are still seen. Many ate human flesh ; and about 
forty perished from starvation. Several yet live to tell their hor- 
rible story. 

We slept at the Lake House ; and spent the next day with tlie 
surveyors among the precipitious granite ledges, and visiting Lake 
Angela, a lovely little mountain gem. It was like picnicing at the 



464 



ENGULFED RY A SNOW-SLIDE, 



[186a 



Nortli Pole; for snow lined the higher ravines and icicles hung 
from the water-tanks on the stage-road. Here during the previous 




winter, two laborers 
were engulfed by 
a snow-slide. See- 
ing it approach they 
stepped behind a 
tall rock ; but it 
buried them fifty 
fiL't deep. In spring 
tlicir bodies were 
fonnd standing up- 
1 iglit, with shovels in their hands. 

For several miles the track must be roofed to slide off the snc w. 
Tiici-e will be less than a mile of tunneling, all near the crest. 
The cost of the most expensive mile of road is estimated at three 



CUINAMK.V BUILDING PACIFIC RAILUOAD IN THE SIERJ. A 

KE\ AJJAtJ. 



1835. J ESTABLISHING THE K A I E ^V A Y ROUTE. 



465 



huuJrod and fiftN' tliousaiid dollars. From the summit the line 
descends to the desert by the valley of the Trtickee; and is easy 
of construction to Salt Lake City. Thus I'ur the work is admira- 
bly done, comparing fa\'orably with our best eastern railways. 

On the second evening in our tavei-n parlor, there was a long 
earnest conference, to determine upon tlie I'oute near the sum- 
mit. The candles lighted up a curious })ictui'e. The carpet was 
covered with 



maps 



1 



)ronles 



diagrams. 




and 

held down at 
the edges hy 
candle-sticks to 
kee]) them from 
rolling up. On 
their knees were 
president, direc- 
tors and survey- 
ors, creeping 
fj-om one niaj) 
to another, and 
earnestly dis- 
cussing the 
plans of their 
magnificent en- 
terprise. The 
ladies of our ex- 
cursion were 
grouped around 
them, silent and 

intent, assuming liveliest interest in the dry details about tunnels, 
grades, excavations, ' making bight' and ' getting down.' Outside 
the night-wind moaned and shrieked, as if the Mountain Spirit 
resented this invasion of bis ancient domain. 

Reluctantly leaving the pleasant part}^, I accompanied Governor 
Blaisdel twent}'- miles over a rough mountain trail, to Lake Tahoe, 
where, in obedience to a telegram, the little steamer waited to take 
us to the Glenbrook House. Tahoe forever ! Our country has no 



SUJIllIT-CUOSSIXG Of SIEUR.V :<K\ AhAS. NEAR UOXXER LAKE. 



466 EMPTY TRAVELERS FEARLESS OF ROBBERS. [1865. 

Other lake so beautiful. Its bosom glitters with dazzling dia- 
monds; its depths photograph the most delicate tracery of hill, 
tree and cloud. Even the shadows of the faint surface-ripples, are 
clearly penciled upon the bottom, an exquisite, trembling, shining 
net-work. 

Eeports of coach robberies and Indian hostilities came from the 
eastward ; so I telegraphed to a Salt Lake friend : 'Are the stage- 
routes to Montana and Idaho open, and reasonably safe?' He re- 
sponded : ' Both open, and perfectly safe for passengers going- 
north, who are supposed to have no money.' This described my 
own condition so exactly that I started by the first coach. 

Again I spent several days at Virginia Nevada, that wonderful 
metropolis of the sage-brush. There as everywhere, mining inter- 
ests had suffered from wild speculations and reckless expenditures. 
It was difficult to find a business man in California who had not 
lost in Washoe stocks. An acquaintance of mine sunk seventy- 
five thousand dollars in three weeks ; but he could aftbi-d it and 
said he counted the lesson cheap. One Virginia company, which 
spent a hundred thousand dollars in erecting a mill, received all 
the money back with interest in twelve months, llteir superin- 
tendent realized that mining is business, not gambling:; conducted 
it as men manufacture paper and sell dry goods — not as they spec- 
ulate in stocks o." play monte. 

Many new inventions are offered; but the practical miners are 
ten years ahead of the books and the professoi's of natural science. 
The amateur angler comes from the city, with intricate extension - 
rod, patent fl}-, water-proof clothing, silver brandy-flask, and all 
sporting theories in his head, but stands, the entire day, witiiout 
persuading a single fish ; while the unlettered country' boy, bare- 
footed, in torn trowsers, with birchen rod, line of twine, and plain 
hook and worm, secures a splendid string of trout in half an hour. 
So the chemist experiments in his laboratory and the geologist 
makes learned reports upon mines; but the men who feed the 
stamps originate the valuable improvements in machinery, and 
those who wield the pick find and recognize the real silver lodes. 

A resident was pointed out to me, who within five years had paid 
half a million dolhirs interest upon borrowed mone}'', and now was 
not worth a penny ! In the mining regions outside of California 






1865.] FELLOW PASSENGERS ON THE DESERT. 



467 



money on the best security commands from two to six per cent, a 
month — often compounded monthly ! If these rates do not ruin 
any country, it must be so rich that ruin is impossible to ruin it — 
just as Scotchmen, according to Dr. Johnson, are so hardy that 
they cannot be starved. 

From Virginia I continued eastward by coach, first having my 
hair cropped and beard shaven close enough for a votary of the 
Prize Ring. This lessens the disagreeableness of the alkaline dust 
which envelops horses and drivers, vehicle and inmates. A ride 




REFLECTION IN DONNEB LAKE, SIERRA SEVADAS, 

in its thick clouds is like a cold bath ; one shrinks from it at 
first; but foirly in, experiences a grim satisfaction. 

Among our passengers were several New York gentlemen, bound 
for Montana, who, deterred by Indian difficulties from coming 
overland direct, had taken the long isthmus route to San Francisco, 
and were now going to Bannjick via Salt Lake City. A pleasant 



468 ONCE MORE IN SALT LAKE CITY. [1865. 

young fellow on board, just from college, started around the 
world, but in the steamer lost at gambling the money his careful 
father had provided ; so he too had turned toward Montana, to 
retrieve his fortunes. 

Spending but one day in Austin, I was unable to visit the 
' Cortez ' mining region on the north, or the ' Twin Eiver,' and 
' Silver Peak ' on the south. They all promise richly. We entered 
Utah while the mountains were glorified ; and white clouds seemed 
to rest, not against the dome of the sky, but in front of it, very 
near us, permitting us to gaze under and far beyond them, into its 
blue depths. One long bank lay from peak to peak, like a bridge 
of ice. The ashen ground of the desert was intersected with long 
slender streaks of light — the sun shining through narrow crevices 
in the clouds. The sunset was the finest I ever saw ; and the twi- 
light a miracle of gold and purple, pink and pearl, all turning at 
last to sullen lead. 

Gladly we reached Salt Lake City, to enjoy baths, New York 
newspapers, and fresh fruit. Here as in California, delicious 
grapes and peaches abound. The apples are better flavored than 
m the Golden State. Almost our entire continent, from the Ohio 
valley to the Pacific seems adapted to the vine. 

During this visit in September and October, I found a good deal 
of bitterness toward me existing among zealous Mormons, caused 
by the return of my Tr-^une letters. I had written frankly, but in 
no unkindly spirit. I could say nothing except ill of polygam}^; 
and that excited their indignation. Some of the j^oung Saints 
too were naturally wroth because I had spoken of the women as 
homely. At an out-door political meeting one night, they per- 
sisted in shouting for me with suspicious zeal and iteration. As 
I chanced to be visiting a friend a mile away, their vocal exercise 
was love's labor lost. The next day it was confessed that they 
had attempted to allure me upon the rostrum for the pleasure of 
hissing me, and possibly of pelting me. If the young democracy 
of Salt Lake mean to have a personal quarrel with cvqtj traveler 
who describes the feminine Saints as uncomely, they are not 
likely to suffer for want of employment. 

Porter H. Rockwell, reputed one of the leading Danites or 
destroying angels of the church, also confused me in his mind 



1865.] A 'destroying angel' on journalists. 



469 



wiib Fitz Hugh Ludlow, who Lad passed tbrougli two years 
before, and given an unflattering description of bini for the 
Atlantic MontJdy. Some one told Porter, or he dreamed it, that / 
had characterized him as the murderer of one hundred and fifty 
men ; and he significantly remarked, that if I had said it he 
believed he would make it one hundred and filtj-'One! He finally 




concluded it a mistake, 

and contented himself 

with complaining to me 

that he had been cruelly 

slandered by Ludlow, 

and afterward while in 

his cups, a.ssuring me that he looidd kill an}^ journalist who should 

publish falsehoods about him. He is a man of medium size, 

noticeable for his long black hair, which he wears parted in the 

middle and hanging upon the shoulders. In general he is said to 



THE UOXNER PARTY IX 184(j. 



470 



THE SALT LAKE POETESS. 



[1865. 




be hospitable and kind; and his manners mild and courteous. 
At the tiine of my visit he was keeping a station on the overland 
mail route. He is believed to be the person who, years ago, 

attempted the life of Governor Boggs of 
Missouri. Boggs had used the State 
troops to expel the Mormons. One night 
while sitting in his library in Jefferson 
City, a rifle ball from the outside 
wounded him, and he very narrowly 
escaped death. It was the only attempt 
to assassinate a public officer which 
stained American historj^ until the mur- 
der of Abraham Lincoln. 

Can any good thing come out of Naza- 
retli? Utah, with its utter isolation and 
iron social and spiritual limitations, would 
seem the last place in the world for men- 
tal development. But the poet once born, 
no Medusa can strike him dumb. The 
warblings of a j'oung songstress of Salt 
Lake City were now beginning to excite 
attention, fi-om the peculiar and adverse circumstances of their 
origin. A native of New York, at eight years of age she was car- 
ried to Utah, where she had since resided, almost without books, 
society or other opportunity for culture. She was wholly self- 
educated ; and sustained herself by teaching an infant school. 
Her father was a rigid Mormon, a day laborer in humblest life. 
Her ' Funeral of Lincoln,' written in a disloj'al community on the 
very day of receiving telegraphic news of the assassination, pic- 
tures vividly the first paralyzing grief which swept over the 
country : 

Every home and hall was shrouded, 

Ever}'^ thoroughfiirc was still; 
Eveiy brow was darkly clouded, 

Every heart was faint and chill. 
0, the inky drop of poison 

In our bitter draught of grief! 
0, the sorrow of a nation 

Mourning for its murdered chief I 



THE SALT LAKE POETESS. 

{Mrs. Sarah Carmichael 
Williamson.) 



1865.] A FEW OF HER EARLY STANZAS. 471 



Strongest arms were closely folded, 

Most impassioned lips at rest ; 
Scarcely seemed a heaving motion 

In the nation's wounded breast. 
Tears were frozen in their sources, 

Blushes burned themselves away ; 
Languiige bled through broken heart-threads, 

Lips had nothing left to say. 

Yet there was a marble sorrow 

In each still face chiseled deep, 
Something more than words could utter, 

Something more than tears could weep. 
0. the land he loved will miss him, 

Miss him in its hour of need ! 
Mourns the n.ition/or the nation, 

Till its tear-drops inward bleed. 

This bold fligbt of faticv, all will appreciate who are familiar 
with the great mountains of Utah, torn and furrowed to the heart, 
and sometimes cleft asunder from head to foot : 

THE ORIGIN OF GOLD. 

The Fallen looked on the world and sneered ; 
'I can guess,' he muttered, ' wliy God is feared; 

For the eyes of mortals are fain to sliun 

The midnight heaven, that hath no sun. 

I will stand on the hight of the hills and wait 

Where the Day goes out at the western gate; 

And reaching up to its crown will tear 

From its plumes of glory the brightest there; 

With the stolen ray I will light the sod. 

And turn the eyes of the world from God.' 

He stood on the hight when the sun went down, 

He tore one plume from the Day's bright crown ; 

The proud beam stooped till he touched its brow, 

And the print of his finger is on it now; 

And the blush of its anger forevermore 

Burns red wlien it pa,sse3 the western door! 

The broken feather, above him whirled. 

In flames of torture around him curlcfl; 

And he dashed it down on the snowy hight 

In broken masses of quivering light. 

Ah. more than terrible was the shock 

Where the burning splinters struck wave and rock 1 



472 



PA II RAX A GAT SILVER REGIOX. 



[1865. 



The green earth shuddered, and shrank, and paled j 
The wave sprang up and the mountain quailed. 

Look on the hills ; let the scars they bear 
JLasu}-e the pain of that hours despair. 

The Fallen watched while the whirlwind fanned 
The pulsing splinters that plowed the sand; 
Sullen he watched while the hissing waves 
Bore them away to the ocean caves ; 
Sullen he watched while the shining rills 
Throbbed through the hearts of the rocky hills. 
Loudly lie l:iuglied: "Is the world not mine? 
Proudly tlie links of its chain shall shine, 
Lighted with gems sliall its dungeon be; 
But tiie pride of its beauty shall kneel to me.' 
That splintered liglit in llie eartli grew cold, 
Aud the diction of mortals hatli called it 'Gold.' 

A little volume of the lady's earlier poems, recently published 
ill San Francisco, has been very favorably re- 
ceived. The author, never in sympathy with 
the Mormon church, surreptitiously left Salt 
Lake in 1866, and is now the wife of an 
estimable ex-surgeon of our arni}^, who formed 
lier acquaintance while on duty at Camp Doug- 
las, two miles from the ]\Iormon capital. 

In the Latter-day Saints' metropolis I heard 
much of the Pah Ranagat (Indian — 'water 
melon,') silver region, three hundred and fifty 
miles to the southwest, and two hundred miles 
due south of Austin. It lies in the southeast 
corner of Nevada, and is now connected with Salt Lake City by 
a tri-weekly mail coach. Its climate, permitting work through the 
entire year, is a manifest advantage over the mountain regions of 
Idaho, Montana, central Nevada and Oregon, where the winters are 
often very severe. It is so remote that only a few mills ai'e yet in 
operation ; but the veins open very richly, and many believe the 
district will equal the great Comstock Lode. 

Thus for, miners obtain their supplies from neighboring Mormon 
settlements; but Pah Ranagat promises well for farming purposes, 
though it lies in the valley of the Colorado of the West, which, 
according to Ilorace Greeley, 'offers larger and more favorable 



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A SECTIOX OF COLO 
RADO CANYON. 



18G5.] COLORADO RIVER AND BIG CANYON, 



473 



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opportunities for suc- 
cessful starvation 
tlian any other sec- 
tion of equal area on 
the surface of the 
globe — not excepting 
the Great Sahara !' 

The Colorado river 
rises on the west side 
of the Kocky Moun- 
tains in a thousand 
sources, fioni ten 
thousand to twelve 
thousand feet above 
the sea. Its bed is a 
deep natural trench. 
It has cut down the 
high plateau over 
which it first ran, 
throuoh the lime- 
stone, 'through the 
1 sandstone and fiir 
into the granite. Its 
current, now shallow 
and insignificant, once 
filled this vast gorge. 



'!'» 



;i| 










i.K; CANV>)N UF COLORAliU 



474 THE NOVELTIES OF ARIZONA. [1865. 

The Big Canyon is above the head of navigation. It crosses 
three degrees of longitude ; by the windings of the river it is three 
hundred miles long. For this entire distance, the walls rise al- 
most perpendicularly from three thousand to six thousand feet; 
and the width of the gulf at the top is often less than its depth. 

Three hundred years ago, Spanish explorers declared the walls 
of the canyon tliree leagues high. Only a few Indians, Mexican 
trappers and American explorers have seen it ; but those can find 
no language extravagant enough to describe its wonderful scenery. 
The gorge is worn down by water — not torn open by natural con- 
vulsions. The top is an even plateau — not mountain peaks as in 
Yosemite. Our illustration is from the mouth of Diamond river. 

According to some authorities Arizona, signifies 'land of the 
sun.' Less poetic lexicogi-aphers assert that it means 'sand-hills.' 
This Territory, twice as large as the State of New York, is in- 
habited by about fifty thousand Indians, all fierce and hostile, ten 
thousand Mexicans and twelve hundred Americans. Its gold and 
silver resources are very great : but only three or four quartz-mills 
(in all, running less than fifty stamps,) are in operation. Pjotect- 
ing the miners against the savages is almost impossible. 

The Territory is composed of sand wastes, with some green A'al- 
leys; but enthusiastic residents declare it the best grazing country 
in the world. It abounds in ruins of ancient cities of stone, usu- 
ally upon hills now far from water, or near dry stream-beds. 
Since the establishment of missions by Jesuits — who have the 
earliest trustworthy records — the Pueblos, to whom these ruins are 
attributed, have greatly diminished in numbers, and lost many of 
their early arts, including the curious manuiacture of feather cloth. 

In addition to Big Canyon, the country contains hundreds of 
grand mountain scenes. The Cabazin Pass between San Berna- 
dino and La Paz, is famed for noises more unearthly than those 
which disturbed the thane of Cawdor. They resemble sobs, 
whoops, and yells of agony. Indian tradition refers them to the 
perturbed spirits of a savage band once imprisoned and slaugh- 
tered there ; but prosaic science attributes them to desert winds 
whistling and moaning through the canyon. 



1865.] FROM SALT LAKE TO MONTANA. 475 



CHAPTER XXXIX. 

From Salt Lake City, Virginia capital of Montana, lies four 
hundred and sevent3''-five miles north ; Boise capital of Idaho, 
four hundred and fifty miles northwest. The road is like the 
letter Y; at Bear river, eighty miles out, the main stem forks, the 
rio-ht stroke leading to Montana and the left to Idaho. 

I started from the City of the Saints early in October; but already 
tlie white plumes of King Winter waved from every neighboring 
mountain. Most passengers, if provided with feather pillows, 
slumber quietly and refreshingly night after night, while the 
vehicle is in motion ; and comprehend how the Esquimaux and 
some other nations sleep from choice in a sitting posture. But for 
a very few exceptional organizations this night-travel causes 'stage- 
craziness.' Passengers suffering from it have sometimes fled from 
the coach to perish in the desert. 

For hours along the Great Salt Lake, we viewed its shining 
mirror, broken by purple mountains of island, and bordered by 
violet peaks, spotted with white, gauzy clouds. We passed thrifty 
Mormon viUages of dull brown adobe houses, with orchards, and 
shading cottonwoods, and streets watered by artificial streams; 
and valley farms with broad fields, great shocks of corn and huge 
stacks of barley. The Indian warrior indicates the number of 
scalps he has taken, by the notches on his tomahawk. The Latter- 
day Saint advertises the number of wives he has secured by the 
doors to his house. With the poorer settlers rival spouses must 
occupy the same room ; but in well-to-do families each has her own 
separate little tenement. 

Morrisville was built by Mormon followers of Morris, a strange 
fanatic, who out-Brighamed Brigham. Believing that the world 
with all its people except themselves was about to be destroyed, 



476 



ON WATERS OF THE PACIFIC. 



[1865. 



lie tauglit tliem to seize the horses, cattle and grain of their neigh- 
bors, as belonging to the chosen of the Lord. It was 'a part of 
their religion.' But in 1862, the Mormons marched an army 
against the schismatics, who fought them bravely in a pitched 
battle. The prophet fell with a bullet in his brain ; several of his 
followers, including women and children were killed, and all the 
rest driven out. -Let Brigham ponder tlie lesson, ' He who will 
not be ruled by the rudder must be ruled by the rock.' 

At the most lonely farm dwellings multitudes of children, bear- 
in 2; 'shocks of vellow hair like the silken floss of the maize,' attest 
the presence of the Peculiar Listitution in this prolific country. 
In general though not over-embarrassed with clothing they are 
hard}', robust, and of excellent phj'sical development. 

At Bear I'iver our daylight breakfast is shared by a coach-load 
of passengers from Montana and another from Idaho, with whom 

we exchange the latest 
news. Thence our 
road winds pleasantly 
in grassy vallej^s and 
across mir\^ little 
streams ; for bridges 
come only with eivil- 
ization. AVe meet 
many creaking ox- 
wagons, with dingy 
covers, bound for 'the 
States,' From the 
Missouri river to Utah, Montana or Idaho, a team can make only 
one round trip per 3'ear, as cattle cannot travel on the plains in 
wnnter. We see no dwellings except low adobe stations, with 
huo;e stacks of winter hav, cut from wild arrass of the vallevs. 

Crossing a low, bare divide, we leave the great basin of Utah 
behind, and are in Idaho, on waters of the Pacific. After dark, in 
the twinkling of an eye, whack 1 goes our coach — over upon one 
side. We have capsized in a mud-hole; but all escape un- 
harmed. The station -stable hard by has no house, but a little stall 
for cooking and sleeping, wherein the driver is partitioned off from 
his mules. 




SIX WIVES. 



1865.] HANGED UPON HIS OWN GALLOWS. 477 

All the next forenoon we ride along the clear Snake. This dim, 
crooked artery of the great desert's heart, fifteen hundred miles 
long, must be Butler's original reptile, which 

' Wires in and wires out, 



Leaving the reader still in doubt, 
Whether the Snake which made this track 
Was going south or coming back.' 

The Indian name, ' Sho-sho-nee ' or winding stream, is far better 
than ours. It is the river of desolation. Unrelieved by forests or 
green banks for nearly the entire length, it is a natural ditch deep 
in the earth, filled with clear water, and faintly fringed with scat- 
tering willows and cotton woods. 

The white man keeping the first ferry has taken a rather comely 
squaw for the sole mistress of his heart and log-cabin. As we 
pass, she sits upon the ground sewing moccasins, diversifying her 
labor by frequent imitations of the first act of mother Eve after her 
creation, according to Milton's verse — admiring the reflection of 
her own features in the water. 

Passing in view of the Three Tetons (women's breasts) and other 
exquisite peaks; and toiling over long sand wastes, we cross 
the divide of the Rocky Mountains from Idaho and the Pacific 
slope, into Montana among the tributaries of the Missouri. 

Down in the deep gulch of Grrasshopper creek we reach the city 
of Bannack, named from a savage tribe. Here, in 1861, began the 
first settlement of Montana. The diggings often yielded fifty 
dollars per day to the man ; but like most gulch mines, were soon 
exhausted. In flush times the city had two thousand people. Now 
it is a dreary succession of straggling, empty log houses, overlooked 
by a gallows, which has outlived many tenants. Even the county 
sheriff who built it, like a second Ilaman was finally hanged upon 
it, for highway robbery and murder. Rich quartz lodes now 
opened are giving the town a new lease of life. 

Successively crossing Rattlesnake creek. Beaver-head river, 
named from a rock mountain mentioned by Lewis and Clark, 
faintly resembling the head of a beaver, and still another tributary 
of the ^[issouri bearing the euphonious appellation of the ' Stink- 
ing-water,' five days and four nights from Salt Lake City, we reach 

31 



478 VIRGIXIA MONTANA AND ALDER GULCH. [1S65. 

Virginia. This young, lively metropolis of Montana, must 
not be confounded with its Nevada namesake, a thousand miles to 
• the southwest. It was settled in 1862, after Bannaek gave out. 
Now it has about four thousand people. Environed by mountain 
crests dotted with a few lonely cedars, it lies like a huge seipent, a 
crooked, irregular strip of low log houses, Avinding for nine miles 
down Alder creek. Many of these cabins are deserted. The 
American miner is a migratory animal, who will always leave 




A PUOLlilU COUNTRY. 



five dollars per day for the 
possibility of twenty, especially 
when the new diggings are very 
remote and inaccessible. Alder gulch has yielded millions of 
dollars ; and for its length — thirteen miles — was the richest gold 
deposit ever found. Now, it is completely cut to pieces; honey- 
combed with shafts, ridged with ditches, and disemboweled with 
tunnels. A few miners still wash the gold from the brown earth. 
The heart of the town is within a hundred yards of the diggings. 
In flush times, streets were thronged ; stores choked with a stream 



1865.] SCENES DURING THE FLUSH TIMES. 479 

of commerce; sidewalks monopolized by auctioneers hoarsely cry- 
ing horses, oxen, mules, wagons and household goods. Drinking 
saloons, whose name was legion, were densely crowded. Theaters, 
wliich always spring up in mining regions, were closely packed. 
At hotels, beds were hardly obtainable for love or money. 
Gaming-tables were musical with clinking coin and shining with 
yellow gold. Hurdy-gurdy houses, where whisky was sold at 
fifty cents a drink and champagne at twelve dollars per bottle, 
were filled with visitors, ranging from judges to blacklegs, in 
every costume, from broadcloth to buckskin. And all this, in a 
town less than one year old, in the heart of the Rocky Mountains, 
a thousand miles from everywhere ! For Montana is the remotest 
Territory of the United States — farthest both from New York 
and San Francisco, the two cities which will yet contend for the 
mastery of the world. 

Virginia's trade is still heavy, and the business streets always 
lively. The buildings are of logs, lumber and granite, with the 
wooden signs of many irrepressible Jews overhanging the plank 
sidewalks. The currency is gold dust. In small purchases, hand- 
ling and weighing it involves a waste of about twentj'-five per 
cent. Every morning, little boys with shovels and pans gather up 
and wash out the sweepings from the stores, and sometimes realize 
five dollars apiece. 

At the leading hotel I found wooden benches serving for chairs. 
The fare, though with no fruit and few vegetables, was palatable ; 
but the lodgings were open to the objection of that Illinois traveler, 
who, promised an excellent apartment which Douglas had just 
left, found two men in each of three beds, and one in the fourth. 

* Landlord,' said he, ' this room is good, and I should feel hon- 
ored to sleep in one so lately occupied by Senator Douglas; but 
I will not sleep with the whole democratic party !' 

I visited the theater to see the ' Lady of Lyons.' The admis- 
sion-fee was one dollar and-a-half. The drop-curtain was of 
cambric; the stage, as large as a very small bedroom ; five tallow 
candles served for foot-lights; and the orchestra consisted of four 
performers. Many spectators wore revolvers; but the rough 
crowd was wholly decorous, in deference to the half-dozen wives 
and sisters present. 



480 AN HOUR IN THE HURDY-GURDY. [1865. 

I found the hurdy-gurdy more popular. At one end of the long 
hall, a well-stocked bar, and a monte bank m full blast ; at the 
other, a platform occupied by three musicians; between, many 
lookers-on, with cigars and meerschaums. The orchestra leader 
shouted : 

' Take your ladies for the next dance I' 

Half-a-dozen swarthy fellows fresh from the diggings, selected 
partners from the tawdry, bedizened women who stood in waiting. 
After each dance the miners led their partners to the bar for 
whisky or champagne ; then after a short pause, another dance ; 
and so the sorry revelry continued from nine o'clock until nearly 
daylight, interrupted only by two fights. For every dance each 
masculine participant paid one dollar, half going to his partner, 
and half to the proprietor. This latter functionary, who M-as 
dealing monte, with revolver at his belt, assured me that his daily 
profits averaged one hundred dollars. Publicly, decorum was 
preserved ; and to many miners, who had not seen a feminine face 
for six months, these poor women represented vaguely something 
of the tenderness and sacredness of their sex. 

The mountain road from Virginia to Helena (one hundred and 
twenty-five miles northward) is now traversed by the mail coaches 
from Salt Lake City. It has witnessed some of the best staging in 
the United States. In 1865, when it was new and little worked, 
coaches frequently ran the whole distance — equal to one hundred 
and sixty miles of good roads — during daylight; and sometimes in 
fourteen hours. The route crosses the main, or Jefferson, Fork of 
the Missouri, upon a log bridge two hundred feet in length. The 
river shines along a beautiful valley, between mountains pine- 
covtTcd and snow-clad. 

We pass the log ranches of settlers, with huge hay-stacks, and 
fields rich in wheat and barley, or overgrown turnips and pota- 
toes. Despite frosts every month in the year, Montana has good 
agricultural capacity. Small grains, root vegetables, and the 
hardy fruits produce abundantly. Some irrigation is required. 
Thus for grasshoppers have injured the crops. Wheat and barley 
yield twenty to forty bushels per acre; oats thirty to fifty; and po- 
tatoes from one hundred to three hundred bushels. All vegetables 
are excellent and grow to enormous size. It seems far north for 



1865.] 



STANDING ASTRIDE THE MISSOURI. 



481 



cereals ; but in the British Possessions — still higher latitude — the 
Hudson Bay Company has raised successfully every product of 
our northwestern States. Some even believe that the true wheat- 
growing region of our continent lies north of the Upper Mis- 
souri. 

On our right, in a deep canyon of rugged mountains, is the junc- 




VIKGIMA tUV, ilu.NiA.NA. 

tion of the Jefferson, Gallatin and Madison, whose blended waters 
form the ' Great Muddy.' In Minnesota, a little wooden bridge 
spans the Mississippi. Here, one can fling a pebble across the 
Missouri. Still higher, among mountain sr;rinos a soldier of the 
Lewis and Clark expedition, which had spent a year ascending 
from St. Louis, thanked God that he was able to stand astride of 
the largest river in the world 1 

We enter White-tailed-deer Canyon, twenty miles long, with 
grand and startling views, ever shifting, like scenes in a theater. 
Immense granite bowlders, some as large as a railway-car, lie upon 
and against each other, in all positions, as if the gods had hurled 
vast rocks in deadly battle. Some walls of the gorge are gray 
stone; others clothed in firs and pines of dark green and purplish 



482 A VISIT TO HELENA. [1865. 

brown sprinkled with yellow cotton woods. Looking back through 
the canyon's mouth, we see snowy mountains glorified by the dy- 
ing sun, like battlements of a celestial city. Through the oppo- 
site gateway, some peaks are obscured by slabs of sullen leaden 
clouds, bridging the gulfs between them; others are robed in 
drapery white as milk and soft as down. 

Whirling along slipperj'- banks and sideling roads, and at Dustan's 
station passing a spring ten inches in diameter which gushes boiling- 
hot from the hill-side, we reach Helena. This city is the legiti- 
mate successor of Virginia, as is Virginia of Bannack, It has now 
outgrown the anxious stage, which comes to all new settlements, 
and in which every arriving stranger is instantly asked : 

' Well sir, how do you like our town?' 

Helena is about three years old, with a population of four 
thousand. Its two principal streets are in the form of a cross. 
At my visit it did not boast a hotel. Now it has several, with 
pleasant residences, ample business blocks, and a thriving trade. 

It is the supply point for the rich placer mines of the Black- 
foot country and other northern gulches. I have never been in 
any other region wliere gold dust in the hands of working miners 
circulated free]}" in so large quantities. Several nuggets, worth 
from two to four thousand dollars have been taken out. The value 
of the one shown in our illustration is two thousand and seventy- 
five dollars. The relative proportions of the nugget and the hand 
have been carefully preserved from the photograph. 

Single claims have produced one thousand dollars per day. 
These are very unusual cases; but Montana is the richest pla- 
cer mining region ever discovered in the United States. Thus 
far its quartz veins promise to average better than those of any 
other section. As yet, they are little developed ; and the season 
of 1867 opens with less than one hundred and fifty stamps in 
operation, owing to the remoteness and inaccessibility of the 
countr3% 

About one-fifth of the supplies come overland from California and 
Oregon ; one-fifth overland from Kansas and Nebraska; and three- 
fifths up the Missiouri from St. Louis to Fort Benton. This is the 
nominal head of navigation, twenty miles below the Great Falls: 
one hundred and forty miles from Helena, and two hundred and 



1865.] 



CURIOUS PAINTING OF FORT UNION. 



483 



sixty-five from Virginia. But ascending to this point is possible 
only during a few summer weeks, for very light-draft steamers. 
Many boats are compelled to stop below. Freights from St. Louis 
cost from eight to fifteen cents per pound ; passage, two hundred 
dollars. Steamers are from thirty to seventy daj's on the way. 

Virginia is five thousand feet above sea-level ; Helena forty-two 
hundred; Fort Benton twent^^-six hundred. The Missouri at 
Benton is insignificant, giving no hint of the grand system 
of streams flowing to the southern gulf, two hundred rivers in 
one, which afford fifty thousand miles of steamboat navigation. 
In the fall, thousands of returning miners flout down the Missouri 
from near Helena (passing around the Great Falls by a portage of 
ten miles) in fleets of Mackinaw flat-boats— acconiplishing ihe 
distance to Omaha in about thirty days. 

Communication with the head waters of the Columbia is eas}^,^ 
the navigation of Pen d'Oreille lake and river greatly reducing 
the wagon travel. Much immigration comes from the west coast. 

Fort Union, four hundred miles below Benton, is near the 
mouth of the Yellowstone. This old trading post is well known 
among trappers and merchants of tlie 
early days. It stands on the bank of 
the clear Missouri, a stockaded foil 
with two towers; the United States flag 
flying ; Indian lodges in the rear ; little 
Cottonwood groves in ravines on either 
side; and Wghi batfemix upon the shin- 
ing stream in front. I am indebted to 
Major Culbertson, an old Indian 
trader, for an interesting view of the 
fort in its palmy daj^s, painted upon 
bed-ticking, by an unskilled employe 

of the American Fur Company, with such brushes and colors as 
he could obtain in the wilderness. 

On my return from Helena to Virginia the weather was in- 
tensely cold, with deep snow obstructing the precipitous roads and 
transforming the pine boughs into exquisite white coral. Upon 
one bleak mountain in a polar air, we met another coach bearing 
eleven shivering passengers, and were compelled to exchange 




T\V0-TH0USANJ>UULLAE NDGGET 



484 PITCHED FROM A STAGE COACH. [1865. 

horses with it. We found the cold intolerable ; but the cheery 
drivers merely remarked that this was 'lightning.' 

The driver is invariably a character ; always intelligent, often 
entertaining and witty, never any respecter of persons. There is 
a story of one, with a clergyman upon the box beside him, who 
swore long and loud at his balking horses. 

'My friend,' expostulated the preacher, 'don't swear so. Ee- 
member Job ; he was severely tried, but never lost his patience.' 

' Job— Job ?' pondered Jehu. ' What line did he drive for ?' 

Once, with the governor of a Territory, I spent a night at a 
lonely desert station. His excellency craved permission to sleep 
on the driver's bunk. 

'Certainly,' was the unabashed reply, 'if you haven't any gray- 
backs about yon !' 

Night overtook us at a log station with the inevitable bar, gold- 
scales, and great fireplace. Against the wall hung a native potato 
weighing three and a-half pounds. AVhy will so many call this 
American vegetable the 'Irish potato?' We slept soundl}^ in our 
buffiilo robes upon the plank floor. Two of our passengers never 
lost sight of their heavy valises ; they were bringing down forty 
thousand dollars in gold dust from the mines. 

The next morning we were upon a sideling mountain road, 
coated with ice buried under two feet of light snow. Our six 
horses were upon a full run, to take the coach over before it 
should slide down the hill. Suddenly one wheel struck a hidden 
rock. The vehicle narrowly escaped capsizing; and I did not es- 
cape being pitched from the driver's box. The blankets and 
robes enveloping me, fortunately slipped off without entangle- 
ment; and I was projected fully twenty-five feet through the air, 
describing a section of a circle. As John Phoenix used to say, 
that was the only 'description' of the affair I should ever have 
been able to give, but for a friendly snow-bank cushioning the 
broad flat rock upon which I alighted head foremost. The driver 
seemed to enjoy the joke until ten miniites later, when a similar 
rock upon liis side sent him flying against the brake-handle, where 
he hung, like Mohammed's coffin, until he found his lost legs and 
abandoned seat. Some fatal accidents occur in winter upou these 
■uaworked roads. 



1865.] 



COSTLY NEWSPAPER PUBLISHING, 



485 



But more 
once they 



Montana, had but one newspaper — the Virginia weekly Post. It 
was about half the size of the Tribune. Subscription price : seven 
and-a-half dollars per annum, specie ; single copies, fifty cents. 
When the publishers received their year's supply of printing paper 
in May, the freight from St. Louis cost them but fifteen or twenty 
cents a pound. 

than 

were 
compelled to get 
it by express at 
one dollar and 
ninety cents (gold) 
per pound. Ob- 
taining a specimen 
book from a Phil- 
adelphia type 
foundry cost them 
sixty dollars. 
Some of their job 
work, in colors, 
was excellent. 
Before the mails 
began, alSTew York 
semi-weekly jour- 
nal cost its sub- 
scriber one dollar 
per copy, for cx- 
j)ress charges from 
Salt Lake alone. 

The Territory had only four post-offices. In summer tbe tri- 
weekly mail brought letters from New York in twenty-five days. 
During winter snows the time might reach two or three months. 

The climate is peculiarly healthy. This reminiscence of the 
early daj'S was given me from a pioneer, vouched for as worthy of 
credence: — A trapper had his leg badly shattered by a bullet, in a 
drunken row. Amputation was necessary; but no surgeon within 
hundreds of miles. lie whetted one edge of his hunting knife 
to its utmost sharpness ; filed the other into a saw ; and with hia 




A MAN UF NEKVE. 



486 QUAINT INDIAN TRANSLATIONS. [1865. 

own band cut the flesh, sawed the bone, and seared the veins 
with a red-hot iron. He still lives in California, w^alking upon a 
wooden leg! 

Miners' phrases are original and pithy. The 'color' is their 
name for finest particles of gold in the earth. One remarked of a 
man tried in various positions and found utterly worthless : 

'I have panned him out, clear down to the bed rock; but I 
can't even raise the color.' 

Montana is eight hundred miles from east to west, by nearly 
three hundred from north to south. It is w^ell named, being 
mountainous throughout. It contains five large basins — four on 
the Atlantic slope, one on the Pacific — and numberless smaller 
valleys. While snow is deep upon the mountains, cattle grow fat 
among the green bunch-grass of the valleys, a thousand feet lower. 

' My father's empire,' said Cyrus to Xenophon, ' is so large that 
men perish with cold at one end, while they suffocate with 
heat at the other.' But here, one may find greenest herbage and 
deep snow less than a mile apart. Sometimes the drifts half 
cover even the hardy grass of the valleys. Then cattle still sub- 
sist upon the protruding tops. .Horses and antelopes paw up thq 
snow, to find their hidden food. When it is too deep, they live 
upon bark of the cottonwood. Thus Caesar reminds Antony : 

' Yea, like the stag when snow the pasture sheets. 
The barks of trees thou browsed'st.' 

The Territory is occupied by Indians of various tribes. The 
dialect of the Snakes is talked by them, and more or less by 
nearly all savages between western Kansas and the Pacific slope. 
Here are their literal renderings of a few common words : — Deaf 
— no ear -holes; awkw^ard — 7io hands; thunder — the clouds cryimg ; 
Sunday — the big day ; one hundred — the hands ten times ; rice — ant- 
eggs (these, roasted, are a favorite diet;) wagon— u-ooc?en horse; Gal- 
latin river — tlie swifi river; Snake river — the sage-brush river ,- 
Great Salt Lake— ^Ae bad water; turtle dove— the rattlesnakes 
brother. The last-named is from their tradition that whenever the 
dove is mocked or its mate killed, it tells the rattlesnake, who 
follow^s and bites the offending Indian. 

Montana, now^ containing twenty-five thousand people, will soon 



1865.] VIGILANTES ADMINISTERING JUSTICE, 



4»7 



apply for admission to the Union. Thus far, nominally it has 
been ruled through a Territorial legislature elected by the people, 
and governor and judges appointed by the President. Actually, 
the power has vested in the 
'Vigilantes,' a secret tribunal 
of citizens, organized before 
civil laws were framed, when 
robberies and cold-blooded 
murders were of daily occur- 
rence. The highwaymen were 
called 'road agents,' from their 
assumed authority over the 
stage roads and stage com- 
panies, transcending that of 
the superintendents themselves. 
Coaches and private convey- 
ances w^ere stopped by ' road 
agents,' with cocked guns, com- 
pelling passengers to hold up 
their hands, lest they should 
grasp weapons, while their per- 
sons and vehicle were rifled. 
He who resisted was killed on 

the spot. An immigrant who had shot a grouse near the road, 
ran to pick it up; and found that it had f;^llen upon the corpse of 
one of these victims, lying in a sage-brush thicket. In a Virginia 
barber shop, revolvers were drawn, one man was shot dead and 
another wounded ; but such affairs were so common that the bar- 
ber did not even stop lathering his patron's face, nor did the 
patron leave his chair. 

After a hundred homicides, the Vigilantes organized, captured, 
tried, and executed twenty-four of the leading desperadoes ; and 
banished many others. Two or three days before I visited 
Helena, the people aw^oke one morning to find a notorious 
reprobate in a state of suspense — ^hanging dead from a tree limb, 
and labeled : ' Murderer.' It was a sharp warning to the surviv- 
ing cut-throats. The tree, near the heart of the city, has been 
used so frequently for this purpose that it is known as ' Tyburn.' 




A STATE OP bUbFJiXSE. 



488 



QUARTZ ON THE BRAIN. 



[1865. 



Every new State in its early history attracts thieves and mur- 
derers ; and sooner or later, purges itself through the swift, terrible 
vengeance of Lynch law. But it was said that these Yigilantes 
had executed no man of whose guilt there was reasonable doubt ; 
and they rendered life and property far safer than is usual in 

new gold regions. 

In California, a miner 
gave a good illustration 
of the general sentiment of 
the frontier. When he 
was called up as juror in 
a murder case, the judge 
asked him the usual ques- 
tion: 

' Have 3'ou any conscien- 
tious scruples about cap- 
ital punishment?' 
He responded : 
' I have — in all cases 
when it is not administered 
hj a vigilance committee P 

Montana suffers from 
the speculation mania — 
the financial measles 
which attack all infant 
States containing rich 
minerals. It has ' quartz 
on the brain.' Everybody 
has ' feet ' for sale. In 
conversation, quiet gentlemen most unexpectedly produce bits of 
rock from their pockets, with the earnest remark : 

' I have got the biggest thing in the Territory ! Just look at 
that ore !' 

A resident friend and his wife found the carpet-sack of an old 
negress who had long been their family servant, weighed down 
with a peck of fragments of granite. 

' Why, Aunty,' he inquired, 'what are these?' 

' Speciments, mass'r, speciments !' was her prompt reply. 




' SPECIMENTS, MASS'U.' 



1865.] A GREAT FUTURE FOR MONTANA. 489 

The scenery of the whole region is exceedingly beautiful. Cop- 
per and iron are plentiful. Some coal, ' the portable climate of 
our civilization,' has been discovered. Agates, amethysts, and 
rubies are found, and I have seen a large collection of garnets, all 
picked up by a lady in her back yard. 

The development of the next few years will be very rapid ; and 
this little-known Territory will soon produce more of the precious 
metals than any State except California. 

In all the social and material elements for a great and powerful 
Commonwealth, Montana is full of richness and of promise. 
Beautiful upon the mountains is this youngest and fairest of our 
national sisterhood, her arms heaped with shining gold, her hair 
dripping with morning dew. 

Gold and silver^ whether found in rock or in decomposed ea.»th, 
work the miracles of our civilization. Palaces spring up in the 
wilderness, and cities among the mountain tops. Tlie stream is 
imprisoned by the dam, and vexed with the wheel ; fruitful farms 
are wrested from lonely vallej's, and glowing treasures from rock- 
ribbed hills ; newspapers and telegraphs bring in all the world for 
neighbors ; the beaver must dive his quickest to avoid the plowing 
steamer ; and buffalo and Indian run their fleetest to escape the 
gliding locomotive. 



490 LEWIS AND Clark's great expedition. [1865. 



CHAPTER XL. 

The great Louisiana Purchase from Napoleon, was made by Pres- 
ident Jefferson in 1803, for fifteen millions of dollars. It compre- 
hended the present State of Louisiana, and the entire region west 
of the Mississippi, between the Spanish possessions on the south 
and British America on the north — more than half the present 
area of the United States. 

Soon after this negotiation, in obedience to an act of Congress, 
Jefferson sent Lewis and Clark, captains in the United States 
army, to explore the vast, unknown region which his wisdom and 
sagacity had added to the young republic. The prime purpose of 
the expedition was to ascertain the possibility of a road across the 
continent ; it was unconsciously the" pioneer movement for a Pacific 
railway. They started from the then little French village of St. 
Louis, laboriously ascending the Missouri to its sources in the 
Eocky Mountains; crossed the range by a difficult pass; and 
reaching the head of the Columbia, followed it to the ocean. 
It was a daring journey, full of adventure and romance, over 
the untrodden continent, through huiidivds of s-ivage nations. 
It was an epic of exploration — a modern Argonautic pursuit of 
the Golden Fleece of the future. The little band were scouts 
and spies of a grand army for the conquest of a hemisphere — the 
army of civilization and freedom. 

Twenty years ago, Lewis and Clark's report, in two large 
octavos, was eagerly read wherever the English language was 
spoken. The venerable volumes were found upon farm-house 
tables and mantels throughout the United States. Now the work 
is out of print. 

The adventurous explorers journeyed along rivers in boats 



1865.] 



EXPLORERS GIVEN" UP A3 DEAD. 



491 



propelled by sails, oars and tow-lines ; and upon the land, both on 
horseback and on foot. Tliey were the first white men to see the 
Great Falls of the Missouri, and the Gates of the Rocky Moun- 
tains; and to descend tlie Columbia, past all its whirlpools and 
rapids, to tlie bi-oad, inhospitable mouth. 

After the absence of more than two years, they once more 
reached St. Louis. The inhabitants who had long given them 
up as dead, deceived, at first sight, by their clothing of skins 




GUKAT FALLS OF Jilh^SOUUI RIVER, JIOXTAXA. 

and swarthy faces, supposed them Indians. Going out, they made 
tlie distance from the mouth of the Missouri to the mouth of the 
Ct)lumbia, four thousand one hundred and thirty-four miles. 
They returned by a nearer route, shortening it to three thousand 
five hundred and seventy-five. 

Clark was a native of Kentucky, whose familiarity with Indian 
warfire from early boyhood, especially fitted him for this expedi- 
tion, lie acted as the military director, while Lewis devoted 
himself chiefly to scientific investigations. 

After their return, Clark was successively brigadier-general, 
governor of Missouri Territory and superintendent of Indian 



492 BUILD THEil A MONUMENT! [1865. 

affiiirs under President Monroe. He filled the last position with 
signal fidelity and success, until his death in St. Louis in 1838. 
The Indians uniformly named hira ' Eed Head.' 

Lewis was a Virginian, who had been in the army, and afterward 
private secretary to President Jefferson. In 1809, serving as 
governor of Missouri Territory, he found that quiet life un- 
endurable. At a wayside Tennessee inn, he died by his own ! 
hand, at the early age of thii-ty-five. - 'v^o , i/^-^ xs^KJi. 'Vvvm.% (X-^^ji^cv- 

The patience and daring of these explorers, sent forth in 
obedience to the early national instinct which is now culminating 
in the trans-continental railway, excited the warm enthusiasm of 
their countrymen. Successive administrations recognized their 
services by retaining them in important public positions; and 
Congress made large grants of public land to each. 

Simultaneously with the running of the first locomotive from 
the Atlantic to the Pacific, some fitting monument to their memory, 
reared by the American Government or people, should receive its 
crowning stone. 

Their report describes the Great Falls of ^Missouri, two thousand 
five hundred miles above St. Louis, within the present limits of 
Montana, as 'a sublime spectacle, which since the creation has boon 
lavishing its magnificence upon a desert unknown to civilization.' 
Lewis found the river three hundred yards wide, among pre- 
cipitous cliffs, with the water falling eighty feet. On the north 
side the current was broken by projecting rocks and its spray flew 
up in vast snowy columns luminous with rainbows. 

The stream in this vicinity is really a series of descents. In" 
thirteen miles of cascades and rapids, the total flill is three hundred 
and eighty feet. The upper cataract, forty feet high, extending 
across the river like a slightl}^-bent bow, is picturesque and 
beautiful. Among the rapids at its base are many little falls, of 
from one to five yards, while the banks on either side form a deep 
narrow gorge, one thousand feet below the general level of the 
bare plains. These tremendous walls of yellow sandstone give 
peculiar grandeur and impressiveness to the wild, rugged scene. 

The lower or Great Falls are best seen from a projecting point 
of rock. The thunder of the fiilling torrent, vailed in snowy 
foam, the bold banks, the dazzling rainbows, and the immense 



1865.] 'help yourself to the mustard.' 



493 



volume of water, will make the spot a favorite one for tourists in 
all coming time. 

With regret I left Montana, her green valleys glad with streams 
and flowers, her rugged mountains somber with pines and firs. 
On the way back toward Salt Lake^ at some stage stations we 
were feasted on wild geese and mountain trout, more toothsome 



' — ^ 



mr--.^ 




EOBBEUY OF THE JJOXTAXA COACtl. 



than the usual 

salt pork and 

beans. Once 

a traditional 

passenger, at a 

station break- 
fast, found 

nothing whatever upon the table except pork and mustard. 
* Will you have some bacon ?' queried the landlord, 
^No,' replied the disgusted traveler; *I never eat pork.' 
' Then,' responded the ooniplaceat host, * help yourself to the 

mustard!' 

We passed through Port Neuf -canyon, thirty miles long, where 

the mail coach, bringing gold dust from Montana, has been twice 

robbed. The last time, it was crowded with passengers all armed 

32 



494 UNERRING INSTINCT OF BEAVERS. [1865. 

to the teeth, and keeping vigilant watch ; for a suspicious, staring 
horseman, his face concealed by a slouching hat, had twice ridden 
past. The canyon is narrow, with high walls and shrubbery along 
the little brook which threads it. 

In broad daylight, when all were riding with guns and revolvers 
cocked in their hands, seven men with blackened faces, abruptly 
rose up from the dense willows on each side, stopping the horses, 
and firing into the coach. The passengers returned the fire ; but 
their courage was useless. In these stage robberies, persons are 
seldom able to defend themselves if they remain in the vehicle. 
By jumping out and scattering they often succeed in driving away 
the robbers. On this occasion one of the highwaymen was 
wounded but escaped ; four passengers were killed — one, an old 
Kansas neighbor of mine, riddled with fifty bullets and buck> 
shots. 

The robbers secured sixty thousand dollars in gold dust; 
climbed out of the canyon to the sand-hills, where waiting 
confederates guarded their horses; and made good their escape. 
None of them were ever caught. 

Port Neuf creek is obstructed b}^ multitudinousbeaver-dams, only 
a few yards apart, with well-worn paths leading fi'om them into 
the alder bushes. These unerring masons of the stream construct 
their dams in spring, just high enough for the coming season — 
instinctively knowing whether it will prove wet or dry. Some- 
times they quite flood out the gulch miners above; and rebuild 
their dams every night, as often as the gold-seekers destroy them 
by day. They are so shy that the most skillful Avhite hunters 
rarely get a glimpse of them. They cut down cottonwood trees 
fifteen inches in diameter. And it is affirmed that when a beaver 
is domesticated, if a bucket of water be upset on the floor, he will 
make a dam of sticks, blankets, cups, whatever he can reach, — in 
the sanguine hope of forming a pond to hide in ! 

At Bear River Junction, on the fifth morning, I took the left 
stroke of the Y for Idaho. Great Salt Lake stretched blue and 
shining at our left, near its west end, one hundred and forty miles 
from Salt Lake City. We were now in Idaho, barest and 
most desolate of all our Territories, with vast rolling wastes of 
lava, sand and sage-brush. But its lack in agriculture is more 



18G5.] 



EVERY MAN S HOUSE HIS CASTLE. 



495 



than counterbalanced by its richness in minerals. Here, as in 
Dante's Inferno, 'not green but brown the foliage.' Yet this 
nutritive bunch-grass, requiring no rain, keeps the stage-horses fat, 
and often subsists great herds driven hither to escape the drowths 
of California. Here is the world's pasturage. Hundreds of 
valleys await the tinkling sheep-bells; cattle shall browse upon a 
thousand hills. 

Among these dreary uninhabited deserts we encountered few 
travelers and no settlers. The stage stations are built of lava 




LlAll INiilASS, CAPTUKKU BY UNITED STATKS TKUUFS. 

blocks, and their w'alls pierced with holes, for muskets and re- 
volvers, in Indian warfare. Every man's house is literally his 
castle. 

A few of the degraded Utahs still rove these forbidding tracts. 
They paint their bodies hideously ; and with their long locks and 
gross faces look even more repulsive and brutal than the savages 
in general. 

Our coach contains only two passengers. By night, with seats 



496 A MOST WONDERFUL MIRAGE. [1866. 

removed, we sleep upon a bed of hay in the bottom of the vehicle. 
We pass City of Kocks, a curious group of basaltic columns. 
Two rise sixty feet, the Gog and Magog of the desert. 

Hill-sides are curiously mottled with pure snow, brown grass 
and dark evergreens; and ravines lined with kinnikinic, a 
shrub which Indians dry and smoke, both pure and mixed with 
tobacco. 

Sixty miles east, and beyond our vision, is the great Camas 
prairie, thirty -five miles long by eight in width ; rich, easy of irri- 
gation from the mountains which inclose it, and threaded b}^ the 
Mahlad river. This stream, after running more than a hundred 
miles, sinks into the earth like the waters of Damascus. Tlie 
camas- plant, with clusters of pale blue flowers, leaf like a lily, and 
bulb like an onion, abounds beside our road. Indians dig the 
root with an iron hook, and subsist upon it during the winter. 

I had heard much of the Shoshonee or Great Fall of the Snake ; 
but was unable to find an;^ white man who had seen it. It is 
only six miles from the stage-road, (two hundred and sixtj^-five 
miles from Salt Lake City; one hundred and eighty-five from Boise.) 
Hostile Indians had hitherto rendered visiting it unsafe; but the 
lieutenant in charge of a detachment of Oregon soldiers encamped 
at the station, undertook to conduct us. 

Before dajdight we started for the cataract, which Indians call 
Pah-chu-Iak-a — gift of the Great Spirit. Probably our vehicle was 
the first that ever approached it. The tall sage-brush, crushed by 
our slow wheels, loaded the air with heavy perfume. Through 
the dim dawn we were guided by the everlasting pilLar of cloud, 
rising from the troubled waters six miles away. Soon we heard 
faintly the eternal roar of the cataract. 

And here we witnessed a mirage, quite as wonderful as the 
water-fall — a mirage as far surpassing any I had ever seen before 
in years of mountain and desert wandering, as the auroral 
splendoi's of northern night surpass the clouds of a summer day. 
The sun had not risen, and the morning horizon was dim 
amethyst. Suddenly there was born in the eastern sky an ocean 
of gold, glowing and blazing; then at its left, a sea of silver; and 
then, still further, a lake of steel — all broken by rich brown 
islands. 



1865.] VISITING GREAT SHOSHONEE FALL. 497 

One of these celestial islands was symmetric and dark, recalling 
Fort Sumter; another was a black monitor anchored near it. The 
three bodies of water, bounded by puiple shores, and occupying 
nearly one-quarter of the horizon, were as distinct and well-delined 
as a pine-tree, or a rock. 

While we gazed in wonder, a horizontal shaft of blue, ia 
fragments, but on a perfect level, slowly extended across them — 
a broken bridge with piers and arches, like the Bridge of Life ia 
the immortal allegory of Addison. 

Suddenly the sky warmed to saffron, as the great round face of 
the sun glowed between two sentinel mountains of purple, the 
Gateways of the Day. Then the heavenly vision which, con- 
stantly changing in form and color, we had viewed for nearly 
half an hour, disappeared like a vapor. Ah, could it have been 
perpetuated ! But who can paint the mountains, the seas or the 
skies? And if Bierstadt could reproduce on canvas this miracle 
of the heavens, the art critics would say i ' It is utterly impossible 
— no living man ever looked upon such skies !' Pie who sees 
truly will no more place limits upon the wonders of the universe 
than upon the divine love which pervades and suffuses it. In 
nature, as in human life, nothing is impossible. 

Still the river was invisible in its winding chasm, one thousand 
feet below the surface of the plain ; but now at three miles we 
heard more clearly its thrilling roar, and saw the mist with its 
violet tinge of rainbow, which arises forever and ever, as if old 
Shoshonee were taking a vapor-bath or smoking his pipe. 

At last we alighted on a broken floor of brown lava, descended 
the precipice for three hundred feet by a natural rock stairway, 
walked a few hundred yards across a terrace of grass, lava and 
cedars; and stood upon a second precipice. 

Peering over the edge, five hundred feet beneath us we saw the 
river, after its terrific leap, peaceful as a mirror. Half a mile 
above, in full view, was the cataract. It is unequalcd in the 
world, save by Niagara, of which it vividly reminded us. It is 
not all hight like Yosemite, nor all breadth and power like the 
Great Falls of the Missouri, nor all strength and volume like 
Niagara ; but combines the three elements. Like most cataracts 
it has the horse- shoe form and the undying rainbow.. 



498 



EXORMOUS POKTALS OF LAVA, 



[1865. 



The torrent is less than at Niagara; and its crescent-summit 
appears less than a thousand feet wide. But the descent — two 
hundred feet — is one-third greater; while above the brink, solemi: 
portals of lava rising for hundreds of feet on each bank, supply- 




SllOSUvj.NKK, UK .SNAKE KIVEIi, CATARACT, lU.UlU. 



an element of 
grandeur whieli 
the monarch ^)i' 
cataracts alto- 
"•ether lacks. 
One of these 
lava columns is 



crowned with an eagle's nest. Below the fall, over the canyon 
side, shriveled cedars with roots like claw.s cling to the rock. 
Upon the withered branch of one perched a white-tailed mngjiie; 
while upon another, statuesque and motionless, was an enormous 
raven, black as jet. 



1865.] FASCINATION OF THE DEEP GULF. 499 

Down the stream I could find no place wliere I dared attempt to 
descend the almost unbroken wall to the water's edge. But just 
beh)w the brink I crept out to the edge of the projecting rock. 
Clinging to a hardy cedar, I saw the peaceful waters two hundred 
and fifty feet below me. Above, the surface of the water is 
broken into five channels by little islands. Thence I saw the 
river .come gliding swiit^ clear and smooth to the dizzy edge; the 
long plunge; and the caldron, which boils beneath, under waft- 
ing clouds of spray. The fall itself is of purest white, inter- 
spersed with myriads of glittering glassy drops — a cataract of 
snow with an avalanche of jewels. Mocking and belittling all 
human splendor. Nature is here in her lace and pearls, her robe 
of diamonds and tiara of rainbow. 

*The world, how far away it seemed, and God, how near!' 
Under the deafening roar, how the firm-set earth quailed and 
vibrated! How deep the chasm from which rose pearl}^ mist, 
hiding forever from human eyes the secrets of its troubled heart ! 
Long I lay upon the rock-shelf, gazing over the brink, riveted by 
the great white cataract, and the absorbing fascination of that pro- 
found, tempting gulf How eas}'-, by one leap, to leave behind all 
eartlily cares and griefs — to solve the solemn mysteries of death — 
perchance to join the loved and lost, who wait us in the life 
beyond ! 

The river has several other picturesque falls within fort}' miles. 
Returning to the stage-road we continued our journey. At 
sunset came another mirage, in the west, where lakes of gold 
reflected mountains of cloud — 'seas of mingled glass with fire.' 
When these faded, the actual mountains in the north were lapis 
lazuli; but the clouds bevond and above mirrored them as moun- 
tains of marble and sapphire. 

In the dusk of the same evening, by a rope ferry, twenty miles 
below the Great Fall, we crossed the Snake, descending to the 
bottom of its deep chasm by precipitous roads. At the log station, 
half a mile from the river, we walked out by moonlight, to 
view a dark gorge, shut in by basaltic walls, three hundred feet 
high. 

From one of these, fifty feet above the ground, gush twenty 
springs, varying in size from a man's arm to a flour-barrel. All 



500 A BLOODLESS IDAHO VTA^R. [1865. 

lashed into silver spray they leap down jutting rocks, at whose base 
they merge into one. forming a stream a hundred feet wide. This 
wonderful spring, which has not even a name, is supposed to be 
the resurrection and new life of the Mahlad river, which died and 
was buried in the desert sixty miles away. To see it was a fit 
ending for an ever memorable day. 

In nine days from Virginia Montana, my stage ride ended at 
Boise City. On the whole lonely road from Bear river we saw 
hardly a single team, nor any human habitation except stage 
stations. Indeed the most noticeable evidences of civilization we 
encountered were all lying together in the road : a whisky bottle, 
an old newspaper, and an empty match-box bearing a United 
States revenue stamp. 

Boise, capital, commercial metropolis, and geographical center 
of Idaho, is a trading not a mining town, with about two thousand 
inhabitants. It is in the smooth valley of the Boise river — a val- 
ley fifty miles long by five or six in width, and with some agricul- 
tural capacity. The broad, level, treeless avenues, with their low, 
white, verandahed warehouses, log-cabins, neat cottages and ever- 
shifting panorama of wagons and coaches, Indians, miners, farmers 
and speculators remind one of a prairie town in Kansas or Iowa. 
It is overlooked by Fort Boise, which has a noble parade-ground, 
surrounded by tasteful buildings of sandstone; and is a singu- 
larly beautiful frontier post. 

The capital was established here only after a violent conflict. 
The legislature, with the governor's approval, removed it from 
Lewiston, on the extreme western border of the Territory. The 
Lewistonians declared this illegal ; armed a»d drilled for forcible 
resistance, and vowed they would never subnn't without bloodshed. 
Nevertheless, the law was carried out ; and the threatening sorer- 
eigns finally acquiesced. As Webster ponderously suggested of 
Ilayne's speech : 'It is not the first time in the history of human 
affairs, that the vigor and success of the war have not quite come 
lip to the lofty and sounding phrase of the manifesto.' 

Within a hundred miles of Boise are nearly all the present pop- 
ulation and mining districts of Idaho: — 1. The Boise Basin, of 
which Idaho City (containing five thousand people) thirty-five 
miles northeast, is chief town. The 'basin,' a deep,, sau«er-like 



1865.] 



UNATTRACTIVE STATE OF SOCIETY. 



501 



tract among tlie mountains, twenty-five miles in diameter from 
rim to rim, contains some good ledges of gold-bearing quartz, and 
large, rich placer diggings. It has little farming land ; but is 
timbered with noble pines. 2. Alturas county — chief town, 
Eocky Bar, ninety-five miles northeast. It embraces abundant pas- 
turage and vegetable lands, including the Coamas prairies and the 
chief, almost the only, portions of Idaho giving farming promise. 
Here are few placers; but liocky Bar, Eed Warrior, Volcano, Yuba 
and other rich quartz districts. 
8. Owliyee Kegion, seventy 
miles south ; with very little 
forming land or placer gold, 
bat the richest and most 
abundant lodes of gold and 
silver-bearing rock ever found 
in the United States. 

At the time of my visit, Ida- 
ho society was not attractive. 
Murders were frequent; for 
with a majority of industrious, 
law-abiding settlers, the Ter- 
ritory had also many late 
rebel soldiers and Missouri 
runaways; and the worst 
desperadoes from California, 
Nevada, Oregon and Mon- 
tana. Tiie legislature con- 
tained just one Union mem- 
ber; and during the war 

there was more disloyalty than in any northern community except 
Utah. OhI Parson Strong of Hartford, the fierce political preacher 
ill the days of Federalism, was accused of charging, from the pul- 
pit, that all the democrats were horse-thieves. He replied : 

' It is a slander ; I never asserted any thing of the kind. But 
what I do say, and what I can prove, is, that all the horse-thieves 
are democrats.' 

So in this community the Disunionists were not all desperadoes, 
but all the desperadoes were Disunionists. 




EVIDENCES OF CIVILIZATION. 



502 



THE CHINOOK JARGON. 



[1865. 



Oar new Territories in tlieir early liistor}^ show wonderful nni- 
formit}'. At its first elections each invariably votes the demo- 
cratic ticket. As time passes, each has its fevers of speculation, its 
wild inflations and 23aral3'zing reactions, its bitter contests about lo- 
cating the capital. Each elects some of its weakest and most cor- 
rupt men to office; and, sooner or later, is driven into purging it- 
self of thieves and murderers through the application of Lynch law. 

There are about fifty Indian tribes in Oregon, Washington and 
Idaho. No two speak precisely the same language; but a strange 
patois, known as the ' Ciiinook Jargon,' is comprehended by nearly 
all of them, and by most white settlers. As in all rudimentary 




INTERIOR OP A QUARTZ JIILL. 



languages, the same word is either a noun or a verb, according to 
the context; as ^Ki'ica-ica^'' — 'I speak,' or, 'My word.' Here are 
a few common terms of the Jargon, which frequently enters, as a 
sort of local slang, into general conversation: 



Brave, skookum tum-tum. 
Boots, stick-shoes. 
Boil, lip lip. 
Bag, la sack. 
Bell, ting-ting. 
Bow, stick-musket. 
Cat, puss. 



Cold, cold. 

Come on, hyar. 

Door, la port. 

Day, sun. 

Great, hyas. 

Half, sli-cum. 

Handkerchief, hanker-chum. 



» 



1865.] SCENES IN A GREAT QUAETZ MILL. 503 

Iron, chink-a-mim. Five, quin-um. 

Laugli, ht-Iie. Six, iah-hum. 

Mind, tum-tum. Seven, sin-a-mox. 

Sorrj\ sick tum-tum. Eight, stoat-kin. 

Window, she-lock-um. Nine, quoits. 

Tlianlv you, mer-cie. Ten, tot-li-lum. 

One, id. Tweutj', moxt tot-li lum. 

Two, moxt. Tliirty, clone-tot-li-lurn. 

Tiiree, done. One liundred. Id tock-a-mon-nuck. 

Four, loca-et. ■ One thousand, tot-li-lum tudi-a-moo-nuck. 

While in Idaho, imprisoned by the storms of early wintei', I 
found much attractiou and instruction in studj'ing the quarrying 
and reduction of gold and silver ore. Conducted on a large scale, 
it is a peculiarly fascinating pursuit. The interior of a great steam 
mill with its heav}^, complicated macliinery turning out thousands 
of dollars in bullion daih^, is full of interest. 

First, the quartz is broken by sledge-hammers into fragments 
like apples. Next, it is shoveled into the feeders, where huge 
iron stamps, of from three hundred to eight hundred pounds 
weia;ht, rising and fallins; sixtv times a minute, thunder and clat- 
ter, making the building tremble, as they crush the rock to wet 
powder. 

Quiet, silent workmen, with movements almost as mechanical 
as the stamps and wheels, run this pulp successively through set- 
tling-taidcs, amalgamating-pans, agitators and separators — the refuse 
material passing away, and quicksilver collecting the precious 
metal into a mass of shining amalgam, soft as putty. This goes 
into the fire- retort, where it leaves the quicksilver behind; and 
finally into molds, whence it comes forth clear and pure, in bricks 
and bars of the precious metals. 

Swift and simple appears the process which transforms dull 
worthless-looking rock into glowing gold or shining silver. Yet 
by what tedious toil, consummate skill and endless experimenting 
was this rare alchemy achieved ; through what weary waiting and 
divine patience was this philosopher's stone discovered ! 



>04 A VISIT TO OWYHEE. [1863. 



CHAPTER XLI. 

From Boise I took a trip southward. Our road was over drear- 
iest plains of sand and alkali, often too barren even for sage-brush. 
For leagues on every side swept the ashen, treeless desert, as 
sweeps the boundless sea. Thirty miles out we ferried the Snake, 
two hundred yards wide. A little steamer now plies upon it, from 
Salmon Falls, above our crossing, for one hundred and fifty miles 
down the stream. The stage stations are named with sardonic 
humor. One is called Forest Grove, because there is not a single 
tree within fifteen miles; another. Cold Spring, because not a drop 
of water exists in the vicinity. 

A freighter of our company told us his experiences of a few 
days before. Just at dawn Indians attacked his camp. His party 
of six finally drove them off, but not until one had received a fatal 
bullet. The Snakes frequently kill travelers on leading 
thoroughfares. They are the most daring savages of our conti- 
nent. More than once they have fought their own number of 
white men, without nny special advantage of position — some- 
thing unequaled in Indian warfare. They have even dashed into 
Fort Lyon, a Government post, and carried off horses and mules 
under the very eyes of the garrison. 

Soon after dark we reached Owyhee. Its metropolis is a strag- 
gling strip of town far up among the mountains, at one end called 
Boonville, at the other Silver City, and in the middle Euby City. 
We found Boonville, the pioneer settlement, consisting of a dozen 
deserted frame and log buildings, the gulch between them torn 
and gashed with ditches, where early miners used to work, with 
guns and revolvers lying on the bank beside them, in constant 
readiness for the Indians. 



1865.] 



RUBY CITY — WAR EAGLE MOUNTAIN. 



505 



Two miles above is Kuby City, heart of the Owyhee district, 
and only six miles from the line of Oregon. It is a disorderly 
collection of buildings, on a wooded hill-side sloping down to 
Jordan creek. Hidden in the winding valley are many quartz 
mills — the cause, the support, the very life of the settlement. 

The placers, once rich, are now little worked, though some hy- 
draulic washing has been inaugurated ; and in 1866 there were 
single miners who cleared twenty thousand dollars. Owyhee is sq 
rich in quartz that she can afford to dispense with gulch mines. 

Ruby lies near the bottom of a deep canyon. It is overlooked 




KUBY CITY, OWYHEE DISTIUCT, IDAHO. 

by the summits of several mountains, from six hundred to two 
thousand feet above the town. Some are bare rock, gashed with 
gorges and pointed with turrets — the rest, greensward dotted with 
pines, and in fall and winter covered with snow. 

War Eagle is king of all these peaks — its crest five thousand 
feet above the sea. It is the richest and most wonderful deposit 
of quartz yet discovered in the United States, even eclipsing the 
famed Comstock Lode. 



506 GRINDING QUARTZ VERSUS STAMPING. [1865. 

Upon this mountain, only five miles in diameter at tlie base, 
more than one hundred lodes have been claimed, staked, and re- 
corded ; and the exceeding richness of many of them fairly dem- 
onstrated. 

War Eagle mountain alone will doubtless add twenty millions 
of dollars to the treasure of the world. The large quartz mills 
are erected and owned chiefly by New York, Boston, and Provi- 
dence companies. The oldest cost seventy thousand dollars; and 
during its linst foj'ty-five working days yielded ninety thousand 
dollars in bullion. 

The lodes contain from two to seven parts (in value) gold to one 
of silver. Some of them yield inciedibly. All are nearly per- 
pendicular, and ])ron}ise little oppoi'timity for the litigation which 
was almost ruinous to Nevada. Most steadily increase down- 
ward in width, and in the jiroportion of silver to gold. Old 
miners hold the latter an indication of permanence, as silver mines 
are less prone to 'run out' than gold. I have seen no ore 
equal to this in plentifulness and richness. 

All mining processes are imperfect ; and machinery which ex- 
tracts eight}' per cent, of the precious metals does unusually well. 
Below these Owyhee mills, swarms of Chinamen find lucrative 
employment in washing and panning out the 'tailings' or crushed 
rock, after the mills have done their best and thrown it away. 
The ores are eas}' of reduction ; a stamp will crush from one and 
a-half to three tons per day. In general they are softer than those 
of Nevada, though blasting is sometimes required to get out the 
quartz. 

In :Montana many new grindwg processes have been intro- 
duced. Theoretically, on exhibition in New York, they woi-k 
admirably; but practically, in the mines, they prove worthless. 
Throughout Idaho, Oregon, California, and Nevada, the old-fosh- 
ioned stamps are almost exclusively used. They are simple and 
easy to put in repair; and have the law of gravitation to help 
them. They are also more durable — precisely as it wears the face 
of a sledge-hammer less to reduce rock by pounding, than by rub- 
bing it to powder. Most of the Idaho machinery is from Califor- 
nia. San Francisco, making quartz mills a specialty, is three or 
four years in advance of eastern cities in all improvements which 



1SG5.] 'ITALIAN SUMMERS AND SYRIAN WINTERS.' 507 

are demonstrated successes. Beside, the quartz mill should be as 
near the foundry as possible, for 'shoes' and 'dies' wear oat 
rapidly; and other new portions are often required at short notice, 
to supply breakages. The Chicago mills are cheaper and better 
than those of New York; but their foundries are too far away 
from Idaho. Chicago and St. Louis machinery is chiefly used in 
Colorado, Utah, and Montana. 

Governor Caleb Lyon, in one of his messages, characterizes 
Idaho as ' a land of Italian summers and Syrian winters.' The 
summers may outshine Araby the Blest; but I think he should 
have said Siberian winters. My Owyhee visit was early in No- 
vember. Every day brought its own separate storm; and most 
of the time snow enveloped the region. During the previous 
winter, it covered the ground from November twentieth to Apiil 
first; but trappers and Indians declared that the severest season 
they had ever known. 

The earliest gold discoveries in Idaho date back to the summer 
of 1862. These were placer mines; the first quartz lodes were 
found a year later. Hundreds of miles from civilization, in un- 
known mountains infested by fierce Indians, the early prospectors 
went steadily forward for many lonely months. After its richness 
was a demonstrated fict, the region labored umler great disad- 
vantages. A system of mining, new in many details, was to be 
learned; for quartz differs essentially in different sections. Labor 
and living commanded enormous prices. Supplies came up the 
Columbia, and then over the Blue Mountains of Oregon. Freights 
fiorn San Francisco sometimes cost sixty-five cents a pound, in 
coin ; and from Portland, fifty cents. The ordinary expense of 
sending bars of gold and silver to California and getting returns 
in coin was seven cents on every dollar! 

During my stay, eggs were retailing at two dollars and-a-half a 
dozen ; laborers receiving five dollars per day, and mechanics from 
six to eiglit, all in gold. Money loaned at from three to five per 
cent, a month. 

In intervals of the storms, I glanced at a few of the rich 
Owyhee mines, in company with ^lessrs. George Collier Bobbins, 
John Wasson, and other friends. In a biting wind which nearly 
swept us from the saddles, our horses climbed the corkscrew road 



508 



INTO THE ORO FINO MINE. 



[1865. 



whicli winds up War Eagle mountain. We found the crest 
covered with a foot of snow ; two spots never lose their winter 
mantle through all the summer months. It afforded a superb 
view of scores of the lower hills, and the broad valley of the 
Snake. In that clear atmosphere we saw mountains hundreds of 
miles distant. 

We threaded the tunnel of the Oro Fino mine, five hundred 
feet horizontally, to its terminus, where a perpendicular shaft lets 
in the daylight from one hundred and eighty feet above. Pine 

timbers, a foot 
in diameter, rilj 
the roof, extend- 
ing across from 
wall to wall, sep- 
arated by strong 
npi'iglit posts. 
These quartz 
chambers often 
look frown in 2:, 
but accidents are 
\ ery rare ; while 
in hydraulic and 
sluice mining, 
where there is 
no rock, banks 

EXAMINING THK LEDGES ON WAR EAGLE MOUNTAIN. Of gVaVCl OltCU 

cave in and bury 
workmen. The Oro Fino walls are of granite, smooth and well 
defined, from two to seven feet apart. The ore is nearl}^ white ; some 
is as soft as wax, and streaked with slate. A mill eats but slowly 
into a rich, broad lode like this. 

We visited several other mines where the yield of the ore was 
reported to range from one hundred dollars per ton up to five, six, 
and even seven hundred. On the bleakest summit of War Eagle, 
the freezing wind stung our faces and stopped our breath. We 
saw stakes innumerable, marking the courses of lodes ; and shafts, 
tunnels, and ditches without limit, for prospecting and developing 
mines. One Oregon company had spent a hundred thousand dol- 




1865.] 



THE GREAT POORMAN WAR. 



509 



lars in seeking to find here the continuation of a certain ledge of 
known richness ; but had not succeeded. 

Our last visit was to the Hajs-and-Kay. At one of its tunnels, 
from ore so soft that it was easily cut with a knife, I picked sheets 
of native silver as large as a half-dollar. Higher up on the lode 
was pointed out Fort Baker, a log building fronted by breast- 
works, and its walls pierced for rifles. 

Ye who listen with credulity to the whispers of fancy, and pur- 
sue with eagerness the phantoms of hope, who believe silver min- 
ing a pacific pursuit, and suppose quartz mills not subject to bom- 
bardment, attend to the history of Fort Baker and. the * Poorman 
war!' The Hays-and-Ray Lode, as claimed and staked, was six- 
teen hundred feet long. Other parties afterward claimed, for four- 
teen hundred feet, a lode which they called, the Poorman, crossing 
the Haj'^s-and- 
Ray at an 
acute angle, 
the two lines 
of stakes ex- 
actly repre- 
senting the let- 
ter X. The 
Poorman party 
began to work 
their lode, not 
at either end, 
but at the very 
point of cross- 
ing the Hays- 
and-Ray ; and 
there struck a 
* pocket ' or 

' chimney ' of ore of unprecedented richness — almost pure silver 
Portions of it yielded sixty per cent, of bullion — a result never 
before equaled in mining history. The Poorman owners, it was 
alleged, took out two hundred and fifty thousand dollars in two 
weeks. They carried large quantities of the rock on the backs of 
mules, over the mountains, to be crushed in Portland. 

33 




FORT BAKER AND POORMAN JITNE. 



610 MUCH CAPITAL RECKLESSLY SQUANDERED. [1865. 

The Hays-and-Ray proprietors claimed that the adverse party 
were reducing their ore. The ' Poorman ' not on]y denied this, 
but, with an armed force, drove off the Hays-and-Ray workmen 
from a portion of the ledge, and prepared for bloody warfare. 
And hence Fort Baker was erected. 

The United States district court granted an injunction, restrain- 
ing the Poorman party fi'om taking out more ore, until both claim- 
ants could sink shafts, and trace their veins, and a jury decide 
which owned the disputed mineral. This just and equitable de- 
cision excited so much feeling, that threats of tarring and feather- 
ing the judge were even made by the friends of the discomfited 
claimants. But the belligerents finally compromised the matter 
and consolidated their interests. This was at least better than Ne- 
vada in early days, when in great quartz cases, one party and 
sometimes both, used to buy witnesses, jury, sheriff, prosecuting 
attorney and judge. The man in the play must have lived in a 
mining region before he learned the profound truth, that 'Honesty 
is the root of all evil, and money is the best policy.' 

Mail coaches ply from Owyhee to Virginia Nevada, and three, 
fourths of the supplies for the Territory come by that route, 
hauled from the eastern terminus of the California Pacific rail- 
way. The completion of the railroad to a point due south of 
Owyhee, will bring the most important settlements of Idaho 
within three days of San Francisco, The intervening country, 
at some points, is very rugged. In Humboldt Pass, northern 
Nevada, the engineers of the Union Pacific road ran their line 
along almost perpendicular walls, hundreds of feet above the 
stream. For such surveying Blondin's fiicility on the tight rope 
would seem a more valuable preparation than any degree of accom- 
plishment in mathematical science. 

The first newspaper in our possessions on the Pacific coast, 
was published in Idaho, nearly fifty years ago, by Spaulding, a 
missionary among the Pierced-nose Indians. A log hut still 
marks his pioneer office ; and beside it trees of his own planting 
flourish and bear fruit.. 

The crushing milb of Idaho contain between four and five 
hundred stamps. As in all our quartz regions, the larger portion 
of eastern capital invested has- been squandered through incredi- 



1865.] AGRICULTURAL CAPACITY OF IDAHO. 



511 



ble incompetency, recklessness and folly of management — throngb 
buvinu' worthless mines at enormous fi^'ures, and spending; im- 
mense sums in erecting mills, without first ascertaining whether 
llie company had ore which would justify crushing. But enter- 
pi'ises conducted with the caution and good judgment requi- 
site to success in any other legitimate business, have yielded 
large rewards. Quails mining, growing year by year, will soon 
V>o one of our 
l-adiiiQ; nation- 



interests: and 



ID 



other I 



)ur- 



I 




suit offers larger 
iiiduccnients to 
the discriminat- 
ing ap])lication 
of skill, indus- 
try and capital. 
Idaho, one of 
our very best 
mineral States, 
has little land 
attractive to the 
farmer. With 
irrigation the 
narrow valleys 
of the Boise, 
the Snake, and 
their few trib- 
utaries, produce 
<^ood ves^eta- 
bles and small 
grain. Wheat, 
barley and oats 

yield from twenty-five to fifty bushels to the acre ; and potatoes 
have produced two hundred and fifty bushels. But the country 
will never raise food for a large population. Its grazing capacity 
is excellent. Even these barren plains do not escape one pest of 
the frontier. Yearly, clouds of grasshoppers or ' black crickets,' 



SURVEYIKG FOR PACIFIC RAILUOAU, HL'iUJOLDT PASS, NEVADA. 



512 ROBBERIES OF THE MAIL COACH. [1865. 

covering the ground like a sable mantle, have swept the coun< 
try in July and August, destroying the crops. The moun- 
tains are well timbered and abound in game. The population of 
the Territory is about twenty-five thousand. Though the win- 
ters are long and severe, the average temperature is milder than 
that of Illinois. The climate is exceedingly healthy. 

Eeturning from Owyhee to Boise, I took the coach for Oregon. 
The second day, at Olds' ferry, we crossed Snake river into. 
Oregon. Instantly it began to rain, and continued every day 
afterward until I left the State. In a deep, beautiful valley we 
dined at Miller's, who boasts scores of sheep, hundreds of cattle, 
and an immense barn. He sells fodder to winter travelers on this 
great thoroughfare, but never feeds it to his own stock. A ton of 
hay is worth more than an ox or a cow ; so the poor animals 
must pick up their own subsistence or starve to death. 

Near a little road-side grocery, supported by a post and flanked 
by an empty cask, stood a Noble Red Man. Indifferent to his 
tattered clothing, which afforded no protection from the sharp, 
wintry nights — with his long black locks fl}' ing in the wind — his 
whole soul was wrapped in a whisky bottle. He regarded it 
with a fixed stare, in which satisfaction at the quality of its con- 
tents and pensive regret at their diminishing quantit}'- were ludi- 
crously blended. Mr. Cooper died too early. I think one glimpse 
of tliis Aboriginal would have saved his pen much labor, and early 
American literature many Indian heroes. 

Among these lonely hills, a few weeks earlier, the stage was 
robbed of sixteen thousand dollars in the hands of two Jewish 
merchants, taking money to San Francisco for themselves and 
their brethren, to avoid exj^ress charges. After this brilliant 
saving at the spigot to lose at the bung-hole, they began to trans- 
mit their bullion by the Wclls-Fargo express, which assumes 
all risk of robberies. Its messengers travel thoroughly armed, 
and sometimes repel attacks with great gallantry. Only two 
nights before we passed, an unsuccessful attempt was made to 
rob the coach. 

On the fourth morning, beyond Uniontown, we crossed the 
Grand Round prairie, thirty miles by thirteen, level as a floor 
and symmetrically inclosed by mountain walls. Its jet-black 



18G5.] 



AMONG THE BLUE MOUNTAINS, 



513 



soil looks like Kansas or Iowa, producing excellent grass and 
wheat, but too cold for corn. It seems to be an old lake bed, and is 
submerged a part of the year. On one side is a hot sulphur 
spring, with a basin covering 
an acre. Lewis and Clark, half 
a centurv ao;o, noted the beau- 
tj and richness of this little 
valley. 

Beyond, in deep, treacherous 
mud, which threatened to cap- 
size us eveiy five minutes, we 
be2;an to ascend the Blue 
Mountains. They are fitly 
named ; under white, gauzy 
clouds robing their snowy 
peaks, they are of deepest, 
richest blue. 

Anioniijthe vehicular wrecks 
along our fathomless I'oad, was 
a three-horse ambulance, load- 
ed with apples, one fore-wheel 
so utterly crushed to frag- 
ments that it mi<j;ht have be- 
longed to the original 'one-hoss shay.' On a log sat the driver 
eating an apple, and viewing the ruins with the utmost serenity. 

' Rather heavy that;' ventured one of our passengers. 

' Yes,' he replied, complacently, ' rather heav}' on one wheel !' 

In the deep mountains, whose grand sweeps revealed great ex- 
panses of vellow pines, our horses wallowed along, the coach rock- 
ing like a ship in a storm. After dark, our road was blocked by 
an emigrant, his horses hopelessly down in the mud, and his wife 
and three little children sitting forlorn upon a snow-bank, half- 
covered with fast-falling flakes. Two babies were crying, and the 
group formed a picture of utter dreariness and despair. 

We rolled the horses three or four times over, down the hill- 
side, till they again found their legs; and our driver hitched his 
own team to the stranded wagon and hauled it out of the quag- 
mire. Then, taking the woman and children, we toiled slowly on 




THE NOBLE RED MAN. 



514 



A NIGHT AT MEACHAM'S, 



[I860. 



in the darkness, passing several other emigrants despairingly mired. 
At last, blinking lights, through the deep, pine woods, indicated 
our approach to Meacham's, a large, cheery log station on the sum- 
mit, where, with twenty passengers from the west, with a roaring- 
fire, a wholesome supper, late newspapers and comfortable beds, 
we passed the night. 




'UEAVY ON ONE AVHEEL 



At daj'light we pressed on, in an open wagon. Tlie roads had 
become impassable for coaches, and abounded in vehicles inextri- 
cably imbedded in mud. Emerging from the woods, we looked 
down upon the vast, bare, straw-colored valley of the Snake, dap- 
pled with sun and shade ; and upon far, dim Walla Walla, the 
most populous town of Washington Territory. That evening 
(the fiftli) we reached Umatilla, two hundred and ninety miles 
from Boise. In summer the trip is made in two days and-a-half. 

Thence I took steamer down the beautiful Columbia, spending 



1865.] 



DOWN THE BEAUTIFUL COLUMBIA. 



515 



one day at the pleasant town of Dalles, beside the boiling, whirl- 
ing, surging river. From this point Bierstadt painted his Mount 
Hood. For nearly one hundred miles on the Columbia we see 
the noble mountain towering up grandly, with dark base and 
snowy scalp, though at the nearest point it is forty miles away. 
It is chiefest of a dozen isolated peaks rising from the backbone 




MOUNT HOOD, OREGON, FROM DALLES OF COLUMBIA RIVER. 

of the Cascade Range. Its hight is variously given at from fourteen 
thousand to seventeen thousand feet It has been disturbed by 
several eruptions, simultaneously with earthquakes at San Fran- 
cisco and other points down the coast. 

At Portland, on the first of December, I found roses in full 
bloom in the open air. During my stay in the pleasant city, the 
steamer Pacific arrived, after a passage of six days from San 
Francisco. She had experienced some of the perils of winter 
navigation on this hostile coast. The weather was a continuous 
gale, and the ship crowded. She had no mate on board ; and her 
pilot died during the trip. For three days and nights the passen- 
gers were shut in the cabin ; no one could keep the deck save on 
hands and knees; and the master, Captain Burns, never left the 



516 LEWIS AND Clark's old camping-ground. [1865. 




FLATHKAD I.NDIAXS. 



wheel. Once he was compelled to turn and run before the storm 
for eighty miles. Being nearly out of coal, he could not go back 

to San Francisco ; and 
the appalling bar at the 
mouth of the Columbia 
was so rough that he 
could only cross at im- 
minent peril. Again 
and again he approach- 
ed it ; but the sea raged 
so madly that he dared 
not go on. At last, as 
children shut their eyes 
before plunging iuto 
cold water, he made a 
desperate attempt, and 
by good fortune sue- 
ceeded in gaiding the 
ship over in safety. 
By the return trip of the Pacific I went down the river, past 
Astoria, past the second winter-encampment where daring old 
Lewis and Clark rested when half their wonderful journey was 
accomplished. In their notes, taken here, they report: 

'Tlie practice of flattcnin.s: the head by artificial measures during infancy prevails 
here and nnionji" all the nations we have seen west of the Rocky Mountains ; whereas to 
the east of that barrier the practice is perfectly unknown. This Columbus noted when 
he first landed in America. Soon after birth the child's l)ead is placed between boards 
tightly strapped, and kept there ten or twelve months. The operation is so gradual 
as not to be attended with pain. The heads of children are not more than two 
inches thick about the upper edge of the forehead ; and still thinner when first released 
from the bandage. The heads of adults are often a straight line from the nose to the 
top of the forehead. 

The flowing of the great river to the sea has been sung by Mrs. 
Frances rv:.li*^r Victor, in a strain worthy of the inspiring theme: 

The blue Columbia, sii >d by the eternal hills 

And wedded with tl 3 sea, 
O'er golden sands, tlllie i from a thousand rills, 

Rolled m lone majest ' — 



1865.] OUR QUARTZ REGIONS FULL OF INTEREST. 517 

Tlirough deep ravine, through burning, barren plain, 

Through wild and rocky strait, 
Througli forest dark, and mountains rent in twain 

Toward the sunset gate. 
"Wiiile curious eyes, keen with the lust of gold, 

Caught not the informing gleam, 
Tliese migiit}^ breakers age on age have rolled 

To meet this mighty stream ; 

Age after age these noble hills have kept, 

The same majestic lines; 
Age after age the horizon's edge been swept 

By fringe of pointed pines. 
Summers and winters circling came and went, 

Bringing no change of scene; 
Unresting, and unhasting, and unspent. 

Dwelt Nature here serene. 

Till God's own time to plant of Freedooj's seed 

In this selected soil, 
Denied forever unto blood and greed, 

But blest to honest toil. 

1): H: ^ =i: 4= X >!' 

Be mine the dreams prophetic, shadowing forth 

The things that yet shall be, 
When through this gate the treasures of the North 

Flow outward to the sea. 

Doubly pleasant seemed the kindly greetings and tlie cheerful 
comforts of San Francisco, after these long mountain wanderings. 
But our wild quartz regions are ever full of interest to the thought- 
fid visitor. Their early settlers have braved Indians and elements, 
endured hard fare, hard work, long banishment from civilization 
and from home. His spirit must be poor indeed, who can see in 
this nothing more than narrow greed for gold. With honorable 
ambition for pecuniary success, it blends that marvelous pioneer 
instinct which in thirty years has carried our freedom and our flag 
from the Mississippi to the Pacific — conquered half a continent for 
the future home of fifty millions of self-governed people, speaking 
the same language, obeying the same laws, acknowledging the 
same religion, of divine love and human brotherhood. 



518 THE TELEGRAPH ALWAYS A MIEACLE. [1865. 



CHAPTER XLII. 

On a December afternoon I left San Francisco by a little steamer 
which plies across the bay and winds up Petal uma creek or bayou 
— a channel crooked as a corkscrew, and often too narrow for a 
boat to turn around in, or for one to pass another. 

Spending the night at Petaluma, the head of navigation, 1 
strolled into the telegraph office for an evening chat with Dr. 
Lovejoy, the superintendent — a relative of Elijah P. Lovejoy, 
who was murdered by a mob at Alton Illinois in 1837, be- 
cause he persisted in discussing slavery through his weekly relig- 
ious newspaper. Now, when we go all over the world to find 
marble white enough for those who fell later, wh}^ have we no 
memorial of that young hero who gave the flower of his da3's, 
capacity of high order, and finally life itself, in defense of the 
right to speak and to print? 

During our conversation, the operator, hearing a misdirected 
dispatch for me passing over the wires to Healdsburg, caught it on 
the wing, and transcribed it. The telegraph is a perpetual miracle. 
No familiarity however long, makes it prosaic. How rarely its 
confidences are violated ! Yet daily the most important and deli- 
cate messages are sent for thousands of miles, where every operator 
on the line may hear them passing. 

To what curious skill it trains the ear! An expert telegrapher 
stands in the middle of a room where twenty instruments are tap- 
ping out messages from as many different places, and easily reads 
by sound, any one of them, not in the least confused by the rest. 
Once, in a disagreement, the Cincinnati Gazette was cut off from the 
dispatches of the Associated Press. But still when important news 
came over the wires, the Gazette always obtained and printed it. 



loG.J.] INGENIOUS NEWSPAPERIAL STRATEGY, 



519 



The association, chagrined at finding its excommunication harm- 
less, was glad to make terms again with a newspaper which, denied 
tlio privilege of paying for its bulletins, succeeded in getting 
them without paying. The telegraph company believed that some 
treacherous employe had been stealing the dispatches. But the 
truth was, during summer, press news came late at night, when the 
city was very still. The telegraph office was in the upper story of 




MADRONA TREE, HEALDSBURG, CALIFORNIA. 



a high building on the south side of Third street. The Gazette 
employed a first class operator to stand on the north side. At 
that great distance, as the messages were spelled by the instru- 
ment, he heard them through the open windows, and transcribed 
them in his note-book under a street lamp! 

How unmistakably individuality comes out, in this conversa- 
tion through a system of the most delicate lines and the minutest 
dots ! The Baltimore operator sitting at his table, reads by sound 
the messages always clicking to and fro between Washington 
and Philadelphia, New York and Boston. And after hearing half 



520 A STORY OF THE REBELLION. [1865. 

a dozen words of any dispatch, he can tell who is the sender, out 
of all the hundred employees with whose telegraph-writing he 
is familiar. 

During one of John Morgan's raids into Indiana, he entered the 
telegraph otBce of an interior village; and with drawn revolver 
commanded the operator to ask a neighboring town on the Ohio 
river, whether any Federal gunboats were there. The young man 
could give no warning; — there was the six-shooter, and a rebel 
telegrapher who accompanied Morgan eyed him like a lynx. So 
he made the simple inquiry. But the operator at the river no- 
ticed the tremulousness and excitement in the sensitive metallic 
voice asking the question, and instantly surmised the cause. There 
were no gunboats within twenty miles; but he promptly replied: 

' There are two at the landing ; and from ni}^ window I see 
three more just coming around the bend !' 

This was enough for Morgan. He sought some safer point for 
recrossing the river. 

In Sacramento one evening, I sat beside an operator while the 
circuit was opened across the continent, for a little chatting be- 
tween the offices along the line before sajdiig ' Good night.' This 
message came from New York : 

' Fire this moment broken out think on Chambers street near 
City Hall Park.' 

While it was being spelled, my companion learned from the 
style of transmission who was the sender, and told me his name. 
Wonderful the invention through which, half across the world, 
men can talk familiarlv, as we converse face to face! Far 
more wonderful the individuality which so reveals itself in the 
tapping of a little key, that we recognize it three thousand 
miles away ! 

The next morning I continued on by stage. The jet-black 
prairie soil, which the drivers call 'adobe,' is dotted with park- 
like groves of live-oak, and resembles portions of Texas. Low, 
flat and rich, abounding in pleasant shaded homes, it is excellent 
farming land, requiring no irrigation, and producing foi'ty to sixty 
bushels of corn to the acre. 

Most of the settlers are from prolific Missouri. Their neigh- 
bors of Yankee origin declare that they are ' shiftless ;' that if 



1865.] HEALDSBURG AND FOS S -STATION. 521 

one had to enter a field every day in the year, he would never make 
a gate or even a pair of bars, but only a gap in his hereditary 
Virginia fence. 

In the afternoon we reached Healdsburg, an agreeable village, 
shaded with live-oaks and madronas, or mountain laurels. Here 
the live-oak attains perfection. I have seen no other tree so 
beautiful save the elm of the Connecticut valley. The madrona 
too, with its vivid green foliage, bright red stems and exquisite 
outline, is a marvel of grace and loveliness. One, in the princi- 
pal street of the town, towering and spreading far above the 
highest buildings, is singularly picturesque and venerable. The 
boughs of all trees are richly festooned with great bunches of 
mistletoe. 

From Healdsburg, Clark T. Foss, fiimous hereabout for good 
fare and uncomfortably-fast driving, took me eight miles to his 
station, where I spent the night. It occupies a little circular valley, 
and is the head of wagon navigation in winter. It has an immense 
barn, with great watering trough ; and a long low snow-white 
cottage, with ample verandahs, which nestles among encircling 
hills of deep green, like a marble effigy in a niche of emerald. 
In summer it is crowded with visitors. Now it was deserted save 
by Foss and one hired man ; but very pleasant was the evening 
before its blazing log fire, and the night in one of its inviting 
beds. 

In the morning we started on horseback for the Geysers, twelve 
miles distant, through a nipping and eager air which made fingers 
tingle. We passed a single dwelling; hundreds of grazing sheep ; 
and one immense doe with her long-legged fawn, galloping along 
the crests. 

A few miles to our left were the snowy peaks of the Coast 
Range; and nearer, deep-down under our feet, the magnificent 
valley of Russian river, dotted with live-oak and redwood — a 
valley of rolling ridges, pleasant farm-houses with great barns, 
and broad, green meadows, their brooks and lakelets shining like 
mirrors. 

After climbing for several miles, our path winds along a unique 
natural embankment, known as the Hog-back — a mountain sum- 
mit, like a ridge-pole on a steep roof Now the rains had cut and 



522 



THE ROAR OF THE GEYSERS. 



[1865. 



gasbed it until, at some points, onr horses could barely find a 
path ; but, repaired in summer, it is just wide enough for carriage- 




ALONG THE UOG-BACK. 



"wheel" On 

each '-idc one 
lookb down 
a ]-)ie(_i])iton-, 
bank tiftei n 
bundled oi t\M) 
thousand feet, 
I think Foss's 
idea of para- 



dise is to drive a coaeh-lond of passengers, six in-h:ind, twelve 
miles an hour, along some dizzy road like this. If the wheels 
happened to diverge ten inclies from the track, the load would 
reach the bottom much in the condition of a bushel of apples 
after passing through a cider-nnll. 

Timid visitors hold him in mortal terror. One ladr, lerirn- 
ing that he was to be her driver, jumped out of tlie vehicle, 
steadfastly refusing to ride behind such a reckless Jehu. But 
though he has conveyed hundreds of persons to and fro, be 
never met with a single accident. 

Two miles from the Geysers we began to hear them roar like 
ocean steamers. The smoke is sometimes seen here; but this 
morning the atmosphere was not favorable. We were now four- 
teen hundred feet higher than Foss-station, and five thousand feet 



1865.] TLUTON RIVER AND DEVIL's CANYON. 523 

above the sea. From this point, our road abruptly pitches down 
into the sulphurous valley. In the remaining two miles, it de- 
scends sixteen hundred feet, with thirty-five sharpr turns, often on 
the edge of precipitous banks. In August, Foss drove Messrs. 
Colfox, Bross and Bowles down this steep grade in ten minutes. 
At first it made them shiver; but growing accustomed to the 
break-neck pace, they enjoyed it keenly. 

Turning a corner, I saw the column of smoke from Steamboat 
spring, rising fully three hundred feet from the ground. At this 
distance it sounds like a railway train in motion ; but nearer it is 
a perfect imitation of a great boat blowing off her steam. 

Down at the very foot of the valley, in sight of hundreds of 
steam-jets puffing up from the ground, we dismounted by the 
hotel, a pleasant, two-story-and-L white building, in summer filled 
with visitors, but now quite abandoned. In the season it accom- 
modates six hundred guests. (Three dollars per day, or fifteen 
dollars per week, coin.) 

Pluton river, twenty or thirty feet wide, and running west- 
ward, tumbles laughingly down the rocks, shaded by overhanging 
trees and vines. On its south bank we first visited the Iron 
spring, a little basin two or three feet square. The water, in- 
tensely irony to the taste, is covered with a yellowish-green scum 
and discolors every thing in the vicinity. With the late fall fresh- 
ets the rustic log bridge spanning the river, had gone on a voy- 
age of discovery ; so we crossed the stream as best we might by 
jumping from rock to rock. 

Then we were at the mouth of the Devil's can3^on, which shuts 
in a little lateral creek running south and emptying into Pluton 
river. On this branch of the main stream are the principal Gey- 
sers. Two hundred yards up the creek we reached the bath- 
houses. The water, pure and cold at the head of the stream half 
a mile above, then heated by the springs, and afterward cooling 
by exposure to the air, is here just warm enough for pleasant 
ablution. 

The steep walls of the narrow ravine rise from fifty to one hun- 
<lred and fifty feet — bare, spongy, ashen, clayey soil, without the 
faintest sign of grass or shrub. Through this chasm rushes the 
curious stream. The narrow summer-path beside it was now 



524 grotto; devil's wash-bowl and kitchen. [18G5 



STEAMBOAT SP, 




DIAGRAM OF devil's CAXYON. 



washed away, compelling us to climb the slippery rocks, and some- 
times to trust the seething, uncertain earth. 

Soon we were among clouds of steam issuing from the soil at 
the water's edge, and thence extending far up the bank; the mud 
everywhere too hot for one to bear his hand in it. We visited 
the Grotto, where tree-trunks and branches extend across the 

creek, over wild, jagged rocks; 
and then a delicious little cas- 
cade which forms a natural 
cold shower-bath. Now we 
began to encounter hot streams 
bubbling up beside the creek, 
some clear and blue, others, 
within two foot of them, black ; 
some very bitter, forming white 
incrustations of salt, and others 
depositing fine-fibred, exquisite 
flowers of suljjhur, like delicate 
yellow or black moss. Hot, 
cold, and boiling springs are side by side, each with its own indi- 
vidual hue : blue, brown, black, red, green, yellow, pink or 
gray. 

We passed the Devil's Wash-bowl, the Devil's Kitchen and 
other localities quite as infernal in sound heat and smell as in 
name. The jets of steam and the bubbling up of hot water are 
curious enough ; but the boilint' ivitJcin hundreds of cavities 
under ground, dimly seen but clearly heard through their narrow 
mouths, is far more startling and impressive. The different 
springs emit many varieties of sound : the singing of a tea-kettle ; 
the pulpy boiling of a huge tank of potatoes; the distant roar of 
a great quartz-crusher ; the cob-cracking of a grist-mill ; the 
sough of the wind ; the murmur of the pine ; the dash of the 
waves; all liquid, vibrating, tremulous tones. 

The principal group is beside the creek for a quarter of a mile ; 
but there are fully one thousand places where steam issues from 
the banks. At times the ground shakes so as to rattle crockery 
in the hotel, one-third of a mile away. The earth trembles and 
shudders as if in terror of going back to the first throbs of Chaos, 



18C5.] witches' caldron; crater; text holes. 525 



of being again witbout form and void, and darkness upon tlie 
face of the deep. 

The Witches' Caldron was seven feet deep, with circular walls 
two or three yards across; but the lower part of the rocky rim 
has broken 



away, leaving 
only a little 
seething pool 
of iid<y black- 
ness, so hot 
tliat it ^vill 
boil an cg'^. 
Several times 
wc burned 
our fing;M's, 
and cauirht 
stilling blasts 
from the liot 
nutiiral fur- 
naces. 

At the head 
of the can- 
yon, lift}- feet 
up a sharp 
hill, is Steam- 
boat spring, 
greatest of all. 
It has no wa- 
ter, but con- 
sists entirely of steam. "We climbed the bank and crept over brittle, 
yielding earth as near the mouth as we dared. Its a})ertnre is as 
large as the body of a man. In the shifting wind, the enveloping, 
scorching, sulphurous steam is neither pleasant n<;r safe; but its 
constant roar and its great column, rising upright for hundreds of 
feet, are peculiarly impressive. 

Rccrossing the gorg{\ we ascended a high plateau, with a 
broken rim, called the Crater, and really suggesting the mouth of 
an extinct volcano. Here are the Ycnt Holes, two springs a 
34 




Wi. cues' CALI/ltOX, CALlFUilMA UKYSl^liS. 



526 THE WOXDERS OF CALIFORNIA. [1865, 

few feet apart, which will boil an egg in a minute and-a-half ; and 
from which steam escapes with great force. A stone as large as 
one's fist, dropped into either of them, bounds up three or four 
feet like an India-rubber ball. I confess a boyish desire to see 
two steam whistles inserted here, and listen to their shrill, un- 
ceasing, maddening screech. I know of no place where so much 
noise could be had for so little money. 

Coming down, we passed one new hot spring which had broken 
out on the greensward within a few weeks; and saw another of 
recent birth where the bank was one hundred feet higher than at 
any of the rest. Even within a few yards of each other they 
vary greatly in altitude. 

Other geysers abound for six miles along Pluton river; but 1 
have named the largest and most interesting. In character their 
variety is very great'; though soda, magnesia, alum, Epsom salts 
and various salts of iron predominate. They seem great safety 
valves and vent-holes of the globe ; but actually are not volcanic. 
They are one of Nature's great laboratories, produced by the 
chemical action of acids in the earth. 

AVhen their discoverer first stumbled upon them, his sensations 
must have been worth experiencing. Indians, who regard them 
with wildest terror, cannot be induced to approach ; and some 
white visitors never dai-e to enter the canyon. The smell of 
brimstone, hissing of steam, seething and throbbing of struggling 
waters, and the underground roaring and trembling, do seem 
peculiarly diabolical, and suggest the Inferno very thinly crusted 
over. 

Travelers declare that these springs far surpass the famed gey- 
sers of Iceland. They are certainly one of the rarest features of 
a section where Nature delights to show the cunning of her band. 
Of all the States which the great Pacific railway will open to the 
annual army of summer travelers — the seekers of health, of rest, 
and of pleasure, from our own and other lands — California will 
be most sought and enjoyed. No other region of equal area can 
boast half her natural beauties and wonders. The Yosemite, 
Sierras, Shasta, Big Trees, Gej^sers and glorious Lake Tahoe 
ai'e among the first eurioiities of the universe. 



1865,] 'STEAMEK L>AY' 1.\ SAN FRANCISCO. 627 



CHAPTER XLIII. 

ON" the morning of December nineteenth I started homeward 
from San Francisco. Once, ahnost the entire population rushed 
to the wharf on the departure of a mail ship. * Steamer da}'' ' is 
still a great event. Everybod}^ spends the night before in writing 
letters; and for the last hour one or two thousand persons crowd 
the decks of the departing vessel. Some go to say ' Good -by,' some 
from curiosity, and some as a general tribute of remembrance to 
the old home, by the sea route six thousand miles away. 

At eleven o'clock outsiders hasten ashore; the gong sounds; and 
with hundreds of fluttering handkerchiefs and pantomime kisses to 
receding faces on the wharf, the great steamer slowly rounds 
and passes out at the Golden Gate, on her voyage of thirty 
two hundred miles, from thirt^^-eight north latitude, to within 
seven degrees of the equator. 

San Francisco harbor is not only one of the most beautiful, but 
one of the most defensible in the world. A notable feature of 
the region is seen from the Cliif House, on the shore four miles 
from the city. Here are scores of monstrous seals known as sea- 
lions, which sometimes weigh two thousand pounds. They disport 
on rocks near the land, their huge forms leaping and tumbling in 
awkward exuberance. Their eye bears a strange resemblance to 
that of a human being, and their barking is somewhat like that of 
a dog. It is made a penal offense to kill or injure them, as the 
Californians naturally desire to preserve so rare a curiosity at the 
very doors of their great city. 

The ships of the Pacific Mail Company, running monthly from 
China and Japan to San Francisco, and tri-monthly from San 
Francisco to Panama and from Aspinwall to New York, include 



528 FINEST VESSELS IN THE WORLD. [1865. 

the finest vessels in the world. The largest are three hundred and 
sixty feet in length, of fiv^e thousand tons burden, and have cost 
about one million dollars each. Elegantly appointed, ably com- 
manded, the perfection of system, they are at the head of our na- 
tional marine and an honor to American enterprise. 

Our steamer, one of the earlier and smaller ones, was the Sac- 
ramento, commanded by Captain J. M. Cavarly. She can carry 
one thousand people. Her upper deck, one-sixteenth of a mile 
long, affords a splendid promenade. 

The great ocean is as calm to-day as when Ferdinand Magellan, 
after sailing for weeks without meeting a single adverse breeze, 
named it the Pacific. Vessels here can have more room, and re- 
quire less strength, than on the stormy Atlantic. The sleeping 
apartments extend far over the water, upon supporting plat- 
forms. On either side the Sacramento has a row of three-berth 
state-rooms built entirely outside her hull; and still beyond them 
the guards, wide enough for sitting and promenading. 

Tier complement of men is about one hundred, all thoroughly 
drilled for duty. One day the long, shrill ' fire-blast ' was sounded 
upon the steam whistle, Everj^ man sprang to his post; and in 
four minutes eighteen streams of water were being thrown 
by steam. Once every voj-age the crew is exercised in this 
fire-drill. AVater-pipes ready for use, jDermeate all parts of 
the ship like great arteries; and with the alarm promptly given 
flames would be instantlv extinsfuished. 

The first-cabin passengers alwaj's embrace many cultivated, 
traveled and agreeable persons. Their average is said to be higher 
than upon any other route in the world. On the first day out, 
they are assigned places for meals; and nine-tenths are always disap- 
pointed at exclusion from the captain's table, the one especially 
desired. But they soon console themselves by cultivating each 
other, compelled by afiinities and repulsions into groups and co- 
teries. They breakfast at eight, lunch at one and dine at five. 

The second-cabin passengers, whose state-rooms are not so good, 
eat from the same tables but at different hours. The steerage 
berths are comfortable and very tidy. Their inmates take their 
meals standing; but have a new bill-of-fare for every day in the 
week. All the compartments, steerage, cabins, engine rooms, 



1865.] 



captains' wives not admitted. 



529 



kitchen, bakery, and butcher-sLops, are clean as a drawing-room ; 
plates bright; knives, forks and spoons shining; and every thing 
like clock-work. 

The vessel is a great hotel in motion, with the disadvantage 







SE A-LIOXS, SAX FKAN'CIGCO BAY. 



On the Pa- 
cific side 
cattle are 
carried a- 

long to supply the tables with beef. On the Atlantic, meats are 
brought from New York, packed in ice. 

The vigilant captains inspect every corner of the vessel at least 
twice a day. They are justl}'' proud of their ships. Xo comman- 
der can take his wife with bim, even by pa3'ing her fare. On 
most steamships and many sailing vessels this rule is enforced, lest 
in fire or storm the master should neglect his passengers to save 
his family. On Sundays the service of the Episcopal church is 
performed in the first cabin. 



530 GULL, ALBATKOSS AND PORPOISE. [1865. 

We left San Francisco in weather so cold as to demand fires. 
Thousands of gulls flew around our ship and followed in her track, 
but fell ofl' as we approached the tropics. The gull is found only 
in the north ; the albatross only in the south. In air or upon 
water both are exquisitely graceful; but taken on board, they 
become utterly awkward ; walk with difficulty ; the deck soon blis- 
ters their feet; and the ship's motion makes them seasick — just 
as an old salt sometimes becomes nauseated in a little open boat 
upon smooth water. Sailors declare that both gull and albatross 
sleep with their heads under their wings while riding the waves 
of great storms; but, as the newspapers say, this 'needs confirma- 
tion.' 

'AYe were seldom out of sight of the half transparent mountains 
for more than two or three hours. Our course was so easterly that 
watches required to be set forward fifteen minutes daily. As the 
Aveather warmed, we saw schools of 3'oung porpoises tumbling 
through the water, like rolling barrels; and frequently encountered 
the full-grown fish, twelve or fifteen feet long, lounging in the sea. 
The ship's approach stimulated them into wonderful activity, 
making them jump from the water, often twent}^ feet high, to 
fall, dashing up columns of spray visible at three or four miles. 
They are a reddish-brown, with dark spots and immense fins. 
Leaping through the air they assume a curious crescent form, 
and impart great animation to the quiet seas. Sometimes they 
are harpooned and eaten, being a flivorite dish with old sailors. 
These declare that when one is wounded and its l)lood discolors 
the sea, all the rest stop and remain with him, even at the risk 
of their lives. 

Great whales exhibited their brown backs, and threw up col- 
umns of M-ater Avithin a few yards of us. An ancient mariner 
assures me that on the north Pacific, he once saw a school of 
whales so large that the captain, who had unwittingly run his little 
steamer among them, was compelled to stop her for fear of break- 
ing the wheels. I find many an old sailor in whom a good jour- 
nalist was spoiled when he took to the sea. He at least makes 
his stories interesting, if he is sometimes ' indebted to his imagina- 
tion for his facts^ and to his memory for his jests.' 

We passed the dull mountain of Cape Saint Lucas, with a whito 



1805.] 



A LAZY AXD LUXURIOUS EXISTENCE, 



531 



sandy beach rising half to the summit ; and crossing the Gulf of 
California in a stiff breeze, threw a parting glance at the long penin- 
sula of Lower California, which ought to belong to the United 
States, Then we were within the tropics, under the purple 
heavens of the south, where Christmas day was like New York in 
August. The ladies appeared at dinner in summer costumes; and 
our state-rooms were so hot as to render the least covering uncom- 
fortable. Life on shipboard in these low latitudes is lazy and luxu- 





'illK IIULLIKX GATK, ULTLKr OF SAX I'liAXClj^U 1.AY. 

rious. Serious thought is too laborious ; one requires no heavier 
literature than novels; spends long days in quiet whist, drowsy 
gossip, or weak flirtation; finds dressing for dinner, exhaustion; 
and sleeps twelve hours out of the twenty-four. 

At dawn on the twenty-sixth, we were in the bay of Acapulco. 
As the entrance is narrow and dangerous, the Mail Company main- 
tains a light on the southern point for one or two nights before 
each steamer is due.' The imbecile Mexican authorities have no 
light-house whatever on the Pacific coast, and only a single one on 
the Atlantic — at San Juan d'Ulloa. 



532 SIX HOURS IN ACAPULCO. [1865. 

The Acapulco harbor, large enough for the navies of the world, 
is beautifully land-locked, chaparral mountains rising on all sides, 
from seven hundred to three thousand feet. Cocoa-palms with 
smooth stems and long green arms bending with fruit, grow on a 
strip of sand at the water's edge. Ljnng in the harbor were two 
French men-of-war, a Mexican coaster, a United States gunboat 
and naval store-ship, and a spare steamer of the Mail line. The 
sun blazed, the weak ripples pulsated, and the whole scene re- 
called Crabbe's drowsy lines: 

'The ocean smiling to tlie fervid sun, 
The waves that liiiiilly full and slowl\' run, 
The ships at distance and the boats at hand. 
And ixnv tliey walk uiiou the seaside sand, 
Counting their numbers, and what kind tliej' be — 
Shijis tofilij sinking in the slteiyy sea.'' 

A mile from shore our wheels stopped; and we were instantly 
surrounded by a small navy of natives in little boats, offering us 
green oranges and ripe limes. One skiff was manned by a gigantie; 
negress, black as the ace of spades, with a stationary umbrella over 
her bare arms and head, apparent!}' to protect her delicate com- 
plexit)n. 

For a silver half-dollar a vovmg ebonv. whose wardrobe con- 
sisted of tattered straw hat and linen pantaloons, admitted me 
amonoi- a crowd of passengers whom he rowed ashoi-e. He 
dragged the boat b}^ hand up the bare sand of the beach ; for 
Mexican enterprise is not equal to wharves. We landed at a little 
market protected hy green bay trees from the fiery sun, and dis- 
pla3'ing on three or fotir I'ickety tables whisk}^, lemonade, sole- 
leather pies, limes, oranges, cocoa-nuts, and exquisite shell baskets. 
Most of our company were injudicious enough to eat fruit extrava- 
gantly, some seasoning it with unlimited whisky; and were re- 
warded a few hours later with the fevei's and diai'i'heas they so 
richly deserved. 

Three centuries ago Acapulco and Panama were the grand 
marts of Spanish commerce. Here Alvarado built his vessels to sail 
for Peru, twenty years after the conquest of Mexico; and annual 
caravans of loaded mules crossed the country to Vera Cruz, with 
the products of China, Japan, and the S^^ice islands. The town is 



1865] EARTHQUAKES — A DROLL WAR. 533 

wretcliecll}^ built, of thatched one-story adobe houses, shaded with 
])alia trees. In peace times, during niglits unlighted by the moon, 
the regulations require a lantern hung out from each door. About 
once in ten years, the city is shaken to pieces by an earthquake. 
One of these unwelcome visitors, ten days before our ai-rival 
knocked down many dwellings and shattered the walls of the 
ancient cathedral. We looked into this rude place of worship, 
with stone floors, and crumbling ceilings adorned by cheap effigies 
and a single oil painting of the Virgin and the Savior; and glanced 
at the quaint steeple containing four or five rough bells from old 
Spain. 

In its best estate Acapuleo contains four thousand people; but 
now it was held b^^ seven thousand Imperialists, (adherents of 
Maximilian) and onl\" fdui' hundred of the inhabitants remained. 
The gan-ison, French, Austrian and native ti'ODps, th(;ugh aided 
by two Frt-ncli men-of-war, was not sti'ong enough to dislodo-e 
Alvarez, the Eepublican, (Pj'esident Jaurez) commander of the 
province, whose flag in full view flew defiant from a mountain 
top three miles in the roar. "With good artillery he could have 
shelled them out of town, fort, and harbor in two hours. 

It is always unsafe to predict how men will fight; but I think 
one regiment of Grant's veterans would disperse six times its 
number of the dusky soldiers we saw lounging about the barracks. 
It was a di-oll war. There was very little fighting except by 
guerrillas, who often robbed both sides with judicial impartiality. 
The Imperialists would capture two or three towns — the Et-publi- 
cans running away without resistance — and then issue a pronun- 
ciamento claiming the entire province, and threatening to hano 
everybody caught in arms against them ; and vice versa. In the 
forty-three years since Mexico separated from Spain, she has had 
forty-one presidents and nearly as many revolutions. One resi- 
dent American argued to me with great earnestness, that we ought 
to solve the problem by killing every native and making room for 
a race with some vigor and manhood ! 

Here, as in all Mexico, the civilization is that of three thousand 
years ago. The country illustrates Draper's sweeping theory, that 
no tropical climate ever produced a great man. Even those de- 
scendants of the daring old Spaniards, who have kept pure their 



534 



NO VEHICLES NOR WAGON ROADS. 



[1865. 



Castilian blood, never intermarrying witli the natives, preserve 
nothing but their complexions, and are an imbecile and cowardly 
race. So in India the experience of a century has foiled to pro- 
duce a single person of genius or high talents born on the soil 




from Europe- 
an parentage; 
but there, sev- 
eral 



A fcciiU-L uF roi;i oi.sls. 



great 



and ability 
have sprung 
fi'om the lower 
classes of the 
native race. 



men of 
power 

Acapulco does not contain a single wheeled vehicle, jSTo wagon 
roads lead to the interioi-; and even in peace all supplies ai'e 
brought in upon the backs of mules and donkeys. 

We found Mr. Cole, the American consul, in a cool, airy adobe 
dwelling, with high walls, stone floor, and a garden in the rear, 
rich with oleander trees and other gorgeous growths. He w^as 
dressed all in white, and reposing at full length in a swinging 
hammock, prostrate with the prevailing fever. May and June are 
the hottest months, December the coolest. The town is warmer and 
\inhealthier than Panama, six hundred miles further south. 

GUidly we returned from this scorched and devastated city to 



1865.] WONDERFUL BEAUTY OF THE NIGHTS. 535 

our pleasant ship, wliicli had been detained six hours for coaling. 
At length, with a supply of food for our hungry engines, we 
steamed out of the sleepy harbor into the ocean, so calm and 
smooth that our vessel often seemed as free from motion as a 
parlor-floor. Again and again, while reading in the captain's 
room on the uj)per-deck, I supposed we had stopped ; but on look- 
ing out, found w^e were making eleven miles an hour. It is easily 
increased to fifteen ; but ten or eleven knots is the most econom- 
ical speed, requiring only half as much coal as fifteen, and causing 
far less wear and tear of machinerv. 

We crossed the Gulf of Tehuantepec, and skirting the low level 
shore of Guatemala, rich with foliage, saw dimly two huge vol- 
canic mountains, smoking through their veil of cloud. 

The North Star dipped lower and lower until it was only seven 
degrees above the horizon. We were unable to see its total disap- 
pearance because we did not go south of the equator, where the 
three Magellan clouds take its place in tlie northern sky to guide 
navigators on their pathless way. Every morning we gazed on 
the brilliant Southern Cross, only seen below twenty-two north 
latitude. Unlike most constellations, its form is suggestive of its 
name, four bright stars shaping a perfect eross. Great sea-green 
turtles appeared on our land side, and the shore foliage grew heavy, 
profuse and drooping. 

The stars looked larger than in the north, perhaps fiom the 
deep blue of the sky and snowy whiteness of the cumulose clouds. 
As midnight approached the heavens were wonderful ; it seemed 
almost a sin to turn away from gazing upon them and go to bed. 
O, these delicious tropical nights, with new vegetation on earth 
and new constellations in heaven — with luminous foamy track 
in the wake of our vessel, the soft vivid luxuriance of the shore, 
the perfumed air which makes physical existence an absolute 
luxury, and the Southern Cross blazing like a pillar of fire ! 

On the thirteenth day w^e met the Colorado, going north, 
crowded with passengers. The convexity of the earth hides the 
hull of a vessel nine miles away ; but the beautiful steamer seemed 
to stand almost entirely out of the water, gliding by within a 
hundred yards, swarming with men and women shouting and 
waving hats and handkerchiefs, while flags lowered and guns fired. 



^.5 



6 ARRIVAL AT PANAMA. [1866. 



To this day, the boom of the most Pacific cannon makes me in- 
stinctively and nervously glance about, to see where the shot will 
strike. 

The heavy eyes of the fourteenth morning were wide open, when 
we approached Panama from the south. A long point of land 
compels vessels to go one hundred miles below before entering the 
great bay, surrounded by wooded hills. On our left appeared 
Toboga with two English steamers, which ply down the coast of 
South America, lying before it. • Winding among high moun- 
tain islands, which stud the bay, we came in view of New Panama, 
wliile the old city, destroyed by earthquakes and buccaneers, was 
pointed out six miles distant. Three men-of-war — two English 
and one American — three ships of the Mail line, and one steamer 
of the Panama railway for plying up the coast, were lying in the 
harbor. 

At ten o'clock — precisely the minute appointed at the beginning 
of our long voyage two weeks before — the Sacramento made fast 
to a buoy ; for shallow water and wicked reefs forbid first-class 
steamers to approach within two miles of the shore. Three of 
us took passage in the captain's dispatch boat, protected by um- 
brellas from the broiling sun. We pulled two miles out of our 
course to avoid the sharp teeth of the long reef standing above 
water at that stage of tide. Here the Pacific rises and falls thirty 
feet; at Aspinwall, just across the narrow isthmus, the variation 
of the Atlantic is onl}" as many inches. 

Here close my journej'ings on tlie Pacific, from snowy north to 
burning south, from Vancouver Island, within a thousand miles 
of the Arctic sea, down to a thousand miles within the tropics. 
Here is the beautiful bay studded with islands, fronting the quaint 
old city of a dead civilization. Here, three hundred and fifty 
years ago, armor-clad and sword in hand, Balboa waded into the 
Pacific, taking solemn possession of ocean and all bordering lands 
for the king of Castile and Leon, his heirs and assigns forever. 
Truly a magnificent domain, had there been no flaw in the title- J 



lSr>6.] NATIVE COMPLEXIONS AND COSTUMES. Oo7 



CHAPTER XLIV. 

After our little boat was pulled up the beach by coal-black 
natives, ^ve landed among tumble-down buildings. Climbing 
rickety stairs and passing under a crazy arch, we were in the 
narrow streets of Panama, shaded by tali dwellings of adobe and 
stucco. The population is six thousand. 

As this was January first, a church holiday, the thoroughfares 
were thronged with gaily attired natives of every hue, fi'om jet 
black to light buff. A few, boasting untainted Castilian blood, are 
as fair as the people of Louisiana and Mississippi; but chocolate 
is the prevailing tint of the 'mob. Interspersed were Frenchmen, 
Germans, Jews, English, and Americans, all in white linen from 
head to foot; and richly dressed Spanisli ladies with dazzling eyes, 
and clear rich complexions tinctured with olive. 

"Women of the poorer classes (these low latitudes where boun- 
tiful Nature supplies absolute wants without labor, have vo work- 
ing classes) wore light linen lawns with immense frills about the 
neck, and exhibiting one entire shoulder and breast. The chariest 
maid i>f Panama is prodigal enough only when she unmasks her 
biauty, not merely to the moon, but to the blazing sun and entire 
po;)ulace. The whiteness of her drapery is in sharp contrnst with 
her tawmy skin. Some boys under twelve wear shirts, but most 
ar3 entirely naked ; while girls appear 'in the elegant costume of 
the Greek Slave.' They form striking couples for promenade — ■ 
young ladies arrayed only in straw hats, and juvenile gentlemen 
in the same attire with hats omitted. The youthful republicans 
of New Grenada are incredibly callous to the prejudices of civiliza- 
tion, and flagrantly rebellious against 'the Paris milliner who 
dresses the world from her imperious boudoir.' If there be 



538 THE OLD CATHEDRAL OF PANAMA. [1866. 

any Calvinism in dress, tbey are hopeless examples of total 
depravity. 

Tbe large, well-stocked trading houses sell goods cheaper than 
New York ; for Panama is a free port, a paradise for smokers who 
love genuine Havanas, and for homeward-bound Yankees, who 
purchase for wives, daugbters, and sweethearts, exquisite lawns 
of Irish linen which are said to last a hundred years. Price, 
thirt}^ cents per yard, specie. Panama hats, which endure water 
and crushing like gutta percha, sell for from three to fifteen dollars. 

Tbere is a large American hotel, and a cathedral, seemingly a 
thousand years old. Many buildings are shattered by earthquakes 
and war. Tbe ' old ' city is reduced to a pile of ruins; and 'New' 
Panama, apparently about the oldest town in tbe world, is tend- 
ing in the same direction. Crumbling walls surrounding tbe 
city, adobe ruins within, even roofs of tall buildings, and church 
towers, are profusely covered with growing vines and shrubs. 
Here Nature accumulates while men decay ; here vegetation 
triumphs over masonry. 

The ancient cathedral facing the plaza is a quaint, irregular pile 
of stono and stucco, with half-a-dozeil medieval Spanish bells in 
one of its towers, and crumbling walls covered with mosses and 
vines. A tottering negro, in spectacles and gray hair, who looked 
old enough to be an Aztec king, and spoke only Castilian, invited 
us to enter. We passed in by a side door, tluough a cobbler's 
shop. The roof is supported by tall pillars, and the edifice will 
hold four thousand people. There is much silver-ware about the 
altar. Scores of marble grave-stones flat upon the ground, recite 
in mellow Spanish or sonorous Latin the virtues of departed cava- 
liers. Our cicerone pointed out one of the paintings as ' Saint 
Francisco,' another as 'Saint Sebastian,' a third as 'Mary and the 
Child ;' and then, with polite beseeching, presented the contribu- 
tion box. Just now no religious service was held, as the repub- 
lican leader of the late revolution had driven away all the priests. 
Ordinarily, a revolution in a Spanish-American town attracts little 
more attention than a thunder shower in the United States. 

At this coolest season of the year the blazing sun was fearful. 
A superannuated New York omnibus, drawn by two mules, rattled 
its bones through the streets, and a newsboy brought us the Daily 



1866.] A BLACK PROVERBIAL PHILOSOPHER. 539 

Slar, printed in Spanish and English, damp from the press — two 
modern outcroppings in these ancient strata. One brawny negro, 
under a broad Panama hat, aired his EngUsh for our benefit: 

'Shalcspcare saj-s: 'The white man rules the day and the black 
man rules the night;' but Gabriel says: 'The law rules the poor 
man, and the rich man rules the law." 

Gabriel, a sort of local Farquhar Tupper, seemed to be blowing 
his horn, after taking several horns too many; but drew one of 
the large and admiring audiences which usually attend that pro- 
found school of philosophy. 

We obtained a glimpse of the great convent on the sea-shore, 
now closed by the revolution ; and also of the huge dilapidated 
fort, half concealed under luxuriant vines and shrubs bearing 
o:oro;eous flowers. Then seeinsr a little steamer filled with our 

DO O 

passengers, like a hive black with bees, moving to the shore, we 
hastened down the hot, narrow, winding streets to the railway 
station at the water's edge ; and elbowed through the dense, pant- 
ing crowd into the cars, which have cane seats, and wooden blinds 
instead of glass windows. The locomotive shrieked, and we 
moved out of the city, following endless curves, slowly winding 
around foot-hills and through jungles, toward the summit of that 
narrow neck of land which divides two unbounded seas. 

The Panama railway, begun in 1848, was completed in seven 
years, costing one hundred and sixty thousand dollars \)cr mile. 
Again and again its work was suspended; for the fever-breeding 
air poisoned all who breathed it. Natives, West Indians, Irish, 
French, Germans, Austrians, Coolies, and Chinese were suc- 
cessively employed as laborers, and to all it proved ftital. The 
forty-eight miles, ridged with graves, are said to have cost a 
man's life for every sleeper. Jamaica negroes and whites from 
our northern States bore the climate best, and finished the work. 
Think of men breathing fever, penetrating cane-brakes, wading 
swamps, fighting noxious insects, dodging boa-constrictors, cou- 
gars and crocodiles, and constantly braving death, for one or two 
dollars per day ! 

The road pays larger dividends than any other in the world. 
It charges twenty-five dollars in specie for a ride of forty-eight 
miles, and corresponding prices for freight. Seven-eighths of its 



540 LIGNUMVITAE SLEEPERS — CEMENT POLES. [1866. 

passenger and two-fiftljs of its other receipts are from tlie Califor- 
nia trade. This freight includes treasure; estimating it by the 
ton much the larger portion goes southward. The European and 
United States trade with tlie west coast of South America is very 




heavy. British mail steamers ply from Valparaiso to Panama : 
and on the east side another line connects Aspinwall with Liver- 
pool. 

The sleepers are of lignum vitje, the only timber which endures 
the ravages of climate and insects. The accompanying telegraph- 



1S66.] RICHEST VEGETATION IN THE WORLD. 541 

poles are of cement, as no timber exposed to the air would last 
more than one j'ear. Four miles apart are the local superintend- 
ents' bouses, of uniform architecture ; two stories, white, with green 
blinds, high ceilings, broad halls, deep balconies and piazza around 
the entire building, and separate kitchens in the rear. These 
frame dwellings, all made in New York, and sent out ready to be 
put together, look cool and inviting. Each superintendent is 
responsible for his four miles 'of road, which requires constant 
labor to keep it from being washed away by rains, or crumbled 
or covered by the irrepressible vegetation. 

Beside the track are the dwellings of native workmen and vil- 
lagers — little, steep-roofed cabins, thatched with tiles, grass or 
cane, with walls of sticks and plaster. They look dry and cool; 
but during the rain}^ season the}" must admit water like sieves, and 
their occupants become aquatic. The women were celebrating 
the day in clean fi'ocks and bits of finer3^ All wear Pan- 
ama hats like the men. Prolific Nature has blessed them with in- 
numerable dusk}^ babies. I have seen nothing like it save in Salt 
Lake streets and on Missouri prairies. 

Here is the richest, densest vegetation in the world — an impene- 
trable tangle of mangoes, plantains, palms, oranges, bananas, limes, 
India rubber trees, and thousands of shrubs and parasites new to 
northern ej'es. Here is primeval architecture — endless cloisters, 
colonnades, and bowers. Little vistas of greensward, fragments of 
water, hills and basaltic cliffs, are exceptional. As a whole, the 
isthmus is a vast jungle of trees, cane-brakes, and parasites, gay 
with gorgeous flowers and birds of brilliant plumage, rich with 
the cocoa-nut, and sometimes dazzling with the brightness of the 
orange. 

Monkeys and parrots chatter on the branches; wild beasts hide 
in the dingles; insects swarm in the swamps; huge reptiles drag 
their slow lengths along the oozy soil, darkened by thick foliage 
which shuts out the light of the rich tropical heavens. Fi-om 
branches sixty feet high, vines hang down like ropes, mingling 
on the earth in mazes and lab^-rinths, and climbing and winding 
up the huge trunks. The old fact of nature and figure of rhetoric 
— the sustaining oak and clinging vine — man's strength and 
woman's tenderness — is reversed. The tree indeed supports the 

35 



542 ALONG THE PANAMA RAIL"V\'AY. [1866. 

vine ; but is smothered in the embrace of death. The trunks of 
some forest kings resemble huge pipes of lead, and even the stems 
of willows are in sections, with joints, like corn-stalks and sugar- 
cane. 

Here are rarest combinations of color and form — wild palms 
with leaves eighteen inches long yet only a finger's width ; im- 
mense groves of cultivated palms heavy with fruit; countless 
bananas upon which the natives subsist; pulpy stalks, with leaves, 
the thickness and texture of lily-pads, but sword-shaped, and ten 
or twelve feet in hight; birds of white, black and yellow; flowers 
of white, orange, crimson and scarlet, blazing out from the con- 
volutions and tangles of greenness. All is profusion, luxury, 
gorgeousness. Every prospect pleases, and only man is vile. 

Eleven miles from Panama we crossed the summit, through a 
natural gap three hundred feet above the ocean. From these 
mountains one can see both Atlantic and Pacific at once. For 
several miles we loilowed down the Chagres river, against whose 
muddy current natives used to pole up early California emigrants 
in canoes. 

Aspinwall has an excellent harbor, enabling first-class steamers 
to come to the wharf without ferriage. On the chief street is a 
long row of wooden buildings, with projecting roofs or sheds, used 
as trading houses and eating and drinking saloons. The motley 
population of less than one thousand is composed of natives, Ja- 
maica negroes, and Americans. Aspinwall owes its birth to the 
Panama railroad, and was surely born too soon — sent to this 
breathing world scarce half made up. Surrounded and intersect- 
ed by stagnant pools — water unfit for drinking or cooking without 
distillation ; air close and malarious ; and population hybrid— it is 
the dreariest, wretchedest, most repulsive city of fact or fiction, 
not excepting Cairo Ilhnois, in the days of Martin Chuzzlewit. 

The many-colored population was observing the holiday by 
clean clothing and a little more loafing than usual. The post- 
office was closed, but entering by a back door I found an amiable 
negro in charge, wdio spoke no English, but permitted me to ran- 
sack its dusty and disordered shelves for my file of waiting news- 
papers from home. 

An hour after us arrived a second train, bringing only the 



1866.] 



TWELVE HOURS IN ASPINWALL. 



543 



specie. Once admitted through the great gate and over the long 
wharf to the steamer New York, we could not leave the boat 
while the treasure was being transferred. Muscular, half-naked 
negroes received from freight cars the bare bricks of silver, bars 
of gold sewn in canvas, and boxes of coin, each taking a ticket 
describing his parcel, to deliver with it on the ship. Bending and 
perspiring under these precious burdens, the tawny workmen 
marched in constant procession between rows of men, illuminating 
wharf gangway and deck with lanterns. This novel spectacle 
lasted for two hours, convincing me that a million of dollars in 




TKA.NblEUUIXU THE Sl'KClE AT ASPIXWALL. 

bullion is a good deal of money, and would be awkward to carry 
around. Afterward, while the heavy freight was coming on 
board, and the negroes pleasantly diverting themselves in smash- 
ing our trunks, we were permitted to go ashore to get limes for 
lemonades and claret punches, to soften the asperities of the trip. 

At four the next morning the New York left Aspinwall wharf 
for her two-thousand-mile voyage, her passengers rested and 
invigorated by the isthmus trip, which breaks the monotony of the 



54-i DISCOMFORTS ON THE 'ROLLING DEEP.' [1866. 

long sea-journey. She is a beautiful steamer, stanch, elegant and 
connnodious, though smaller than those of the- west side, which a 
single winter voyage on the xitluntic would strip to the hull. 
Her state-rooms are pleasant, each containing three berths and a 
sofa, with abundant drawers and shelves. A fi-iend and myself 
occupied one. Another friend, his wife, five children and nurse, 
had three more, side b}' side; and in day-time we threw open the 
doors, converting the four rooms into a pleasant saloon. 

The moment our wheels started, we felt the sharp contrast to 
the smooth Pacific, and the shining capacity of our steamer for 
rolling and pitching. It was difficult to decide which was hardest, 
to keep in bed through the night, dress in the morning, or eat 
during the day. The tables were a dreary expanse of empty 
seats, and our pretext of breakfasting very shallow and ridiculous. 
Huge waves drenched the upper deck with spray. It is wonder- 
ful how steamers ride them, with wheels now entirelj^ submerged, 
and a moment after, lifted far out of the water. 

For two days we staggered about or adhered to our sofas, bat- 
tling the two difficulties of Artemus Ward — to keep inside of our 
state-rooms and outside of our dinners. The third was a little 
smoother; and wretched mortals began to creep out of their hiding- 
places, and appear at table. The women uniforml}^ declared that 
they had not been seasick, but merely suffering from headache. 
Why is everybody ashamed of seasickness and innocent of its ex- 
istence? Some thirty of our passengers were prostrated with Pan- 
ama fever, often induced by the tropical voyage and crossing the 
isthmus. It is ordinarily prevented by taking two or three grains 
of quinine daily in the low latitudes. 

Among the entertaining persons on board was a lady born near 
the Black sea, educated in Paris, conversant with most modern 
languages, and speaking English with just difficulty enough to 
make her chat piquant. With her husband, long in our public 
service, she has seen much of every quarter of the globe. Her 
comments upon American society were pungent. 

' The Bostonians,' she said ' are very charming, very hos])itable 
very cultivated; but they are perfectly convicted of their immense 
superiority to everybody else.' 

She gave an amusing account of her three days' experience on 



1866.] EXPERIENCES OF TWO PASSENGERS. 



545 



this rolling vessel. Her beautiful luiir, wonderfully fine and soft, 
is so long that when she stands upright, it sweeps the floor. Each 
morning she arranged it laboriously; but just as it was nearly fin- 
ished a heavy lurch would fling her across the state-room, and 
down it came ! After attempting again and again, she at last gave 
up in despair, sat down upon a trunk to enjoy 'a good cry,' and 
then returned to bed for the rest of the day. 

However ill one feels, it is ftir better to partake of every meal, 
and, like Dr. Johnson, preserve the proud consciousness of ' a man 



,m-)!:si''\u;m00!'\\v:'\gmm^ 




'only a headache.' 



who has endeavored well.' Iced champagne is the best remedy 
for this intense nausea. The sea is a relentless leveler, without 
the slightest regard for personal prejudices. One of our company, 
Congressional delegate from Arizona, was a member of the Elaine 
legislature passing the original simon-pure, prohibitory law, of 
which he was an enthusiiistic advocate. I now saw him upon a 
sofa for three days, pale as death, living upon cham])agne 
'straight' — and he seemed to like it! 



54:6 NIGHT IN A HEAVY GALE. [1866. 

The third evening, on our left, we saw the dim mountains of 
Jamaica ; and a few hours later, on our right, the little monitor- 
shaped island of Nevassa. The weather cooled, and the ship con- 
tinued to roll, when we left behind the last of the Bahamas, 

On the seventh day from Aspinwall, in the Carribean sea, the 
wind increased to a gale. Many declare that a storm does not 
equal one's imagination ; that waves never run mountain-high. 
Actually I suppose they do not. Scientific measurements are 
said to prove that they seldom reach one hundred feet ; yet stand- 
ing on the hurricane deck, clutching a rope or iron rod for safety, 
we looked up at huge billows which gave the exact effect of tall 
mountains, far exceeding all my fancy had painted them. In 
beautiful, ever-changing colors they came rolling down upon us 
with great gulfs between, deep enough to hide a village church, 
steeple and all. Standing at the stern, we saw the bows of our 
gallant ship sometimes point up toward the sky, making the deck 
like a steep roof; and a moment after, dive down toward the bot- 
tom of the sea. It is a perpetual wonder to landsmen that a ship 
can ride such billows ; but as long as they strike her bows or 
stern at a right-angle she breasts them easily, though a single 
broad-wise wave would be likely to swamp her. The New York 
behaved admirably under Captain Horner, an old and thorough 
seaman ; but through that long rough night, it was difficult to 
keep in one's berth. Indeed, a new Jack and Gill in the bridal 
chamber fell down the steep hill of the careening floor, while all 
the mattresses came tumbling after. 

At intervals in the darkness would come a tremendous lurch, 
straining the ship in every joint, and followed by crashing of glass 
and crockery. I had always longed to see a storm on shipboard ; 
and here it was, to my heart's content. The anticipation was a 
good deal more agreeable than the reality. It was a memorable 
night — the only one in which I remember to have been kept 
awake solely from fear. By daylight it is appalling enough to 
watch vast waves upon which the ship seems the merest feather — 
to see every loose article flung across the cabin, and dishes from 
the tables scattered about like wheat from a sower's hand ; but it 
is far more impressive for one to lie through the slow hours, won- 
dering whether he will see the cheerful world again ; remember- 



1866.] END OF EIGHT MONTHS' \YANDERINGS. 547 

iiig that a slight break of machinery would leave him at the mercy 
of the elements ; that only a plank is between him and death. 

The next morning we were laboring up the Gulf Stream, off 
Cape Lookout. We were able to make only three or four knots 
per hour — barely enough motion for steerage. Our forward bulk- 
heads had been shaved off as with a razor ; sheets of copper 
stripped from the hull ; thirty feet of the upper deck broken off 
and floated away ; four larboard closets carried overboard ; and 
throe-inch planks, thickly studded with spikes, torn up like paper. 
Old salts declared the weather as bad as ships ever live through ; 
and after reaching port we learned that many vessels went down 
in the gale. At the thin breakfiist tables, where dishes danced 
a Virginia reel, the passengers looked worn and haggard ; but 
jested about the prospect with true national nonchalance. After 
lasting two days the gale abated. 

Go outside in a storm, insure safety by clinging or being 
lashed to a safe object, and watch the wonderful seas. It makes 
one quite forget his terror to look out upon vast mountains of 
waves instantaneously changing in form, and in richness and variety 
of colors which no brush nor canvas can reproduce. 

On the tenth evening from Aspinwall we saw Barnegat light 
off the New Jersey coast. The next morning our ship plowed 
the ice of New York harbor, among a hundred familiar scenes ; 
and threw out her cable at the foot of Canal street, twenty-two 
days from San Francisco. 

Ended were my eight months' wanderings, from the Missouri 
to the Pacific, and back to the Atlantic. I wish every American, 
before going abroad, might make the trans-continental journey. 
Without it he can have no creditable knowledge or intelligent 
appreciation of his own country. New York, New England, 
Pennsylvania, Ohio, the Atlantic slope — these are not wholly nor 
chiefly the United States. Let him view the groat river, with 
its magnificent valley; the prairies which look up at the moun- 
tains ; the mountains which look out on the sunset sea. They 
will give him home standards of comparison for every foreign 
scene; glimpses of our strongest national traits, both virtues and 
faults ; suggestions of the vastness of our domain, our pageants of 
beauty and sublimity, our abounding resources and our great destiny. 



di3 A BIDE THROUGH ILLINOIS. [1SG6 



CHAPTER XLV. 

Ik September, 1866, a new line of sleeping-cars on all the 
routes radiating from Chicago, was paying forty thousand dollars 
per month to its chief owner — an old quartz miner from the 
Rocky Mountains, Thus he earned a frugal livelihood until Col- 
orado mining should become an established success. 

The cars each cost from twentj^-eight thousand to forty thou- 
sand dollars, and are incomparably the finest in the world. A 
new improvement combines a sleeping, eating and saloon carriage. 
In its little apartments the passenger, by touching a bell-tassel, sum- 
mons a waiter to serve him with coffee, oysters, chicken, or any 
thing else to be had at an ordinary restaurant. 

I left Chicago upon a palatial sleeping-car, richly furnished, and 
running like a pair of skates upon even ice. The ample beds 
are as inviting as those of our best hotels. The masculine pas- 
senger undresses as at home, and sleeps soundly, unless on very 
bad terms with his conscience or his nerves. 

Morning found us on a vast ocean of prairie, with great islands 
of corn rising from its depths, and white fleets of villages, neat 
clippers oi country churches, and snowy schooners of farm-houses 
resting upon its bosom. The Illini Indians greeted old Father 
Marquette : 

' How beautiful is the sun, Frenchman, when thon comest 
among us !' 

The scene is fair to-day ; and no man can measure the richness 
of the Prairie State. The southern half is almost as level as a 
floor. I have personal prejudices in favor of regions where water 
will run one way or the other ; but these endless sweeps, mel- 
lowed by laughing sunflower, rippling grass and tasseled corn, are 
the granary and garden of the world. 



1866.] ATCHISON; SUMNER; LEAVENWORTH. 549 

At Quincy a wheezy engine ferried us over the Mississippi;* 
and then the locomotive bore us across Missouri. Again, horizon- 
bounding prairies ; thousands of cattle, white, black and spotted, 
grazing unfenced fields; forests more frequent and dense ; streams 
more forbidding and muddy; log houses increasing; great farms 
inclosed wholly by heavy rails of black-wahiut ; white villages 
fewer and further between ; at the bridges, empty log forts, with 
grass growing in their deserted camps, and flowers springing from 
their precious graves. 

The railway left us at Atchison Kansas. In lieu of the Border 
Eufhan shanties of 1857, is now a well-built city of brick and 
stone, with heavy trade, two daily newspapers, and cars running 
sixty miles westward on a branch of the Union Pacific railroad. 

Thence I took a little steamer down the Missouri. In 1858, 
Sumner, two miles below, had five hundred people. Now it has 
about twentj^-five. All the buildings save five or six have been 
torn down and taken away. Young oaks and cottonwoods choke 
its deserted streets — to me peculiarly desolate, as it was my home 
for two years. Of its then residents, many have gone to the last, 
untroubled sleep ; and the living are scattered all over the 
world. 

We landed at Leavenworth, which looks more like a great 
city than any other point between St. Louis and San Francisco. 
It boasts three railway connections; three daily newspapers, print- 
ed in English, and two in German. It is lighted with gas; well 
built of brick; and has the air of a metropolis. As usual in this 
longitude, the citizens do not underrate its importance. There is 
enough of magnificent expectation to give point to the satire of a 
waggish resident, who insists that St. Louis and Chicago will V^e 
wood and water stations on the railwaj-s leading east ; but ad- 
mits that New York may exceed Leavenworth for several yeai's 
to come ! 

St. Joseph, Leavenworth and Kansas City each started fiiir in 
the race. St. Joseph had age and a rich, well-settled surrounding 
country; Leavenworth, a military post and a fair prairie site; 
Kansas Cit}', the lucrative New Mexican trade and a firm rock 

* Indian : Great and long river. 



550 



RAILWAY RIDE TO TOPEKA. 



[1S66. 



landing on the river in front. But the two Missouri towns were 

Border Euffian ; and with the great war, the whirligig of time 

brought in his revenges. Their business went to Leavenworth, 

while Kansas troops swept ]\Iissouri with fire and sword, Now 

St. Joseph has eighteen thousand people; Leavenworth twenty-two 

thousand ; Kansas City eleven thousand. Near by are Lawrence 

with eight thousand, Atchison, with six thousand, and Wyandotte 

with three thousand-^^all less than seventy miles apart, in a young 

thinlj^-settled region. How they live is a mj'stery ; yet each i' 

I 



OJ 




DELAAVARK STREET, LEAVENWORTH, 18G7. 

busy, with great blocks going up, and its chief street a Broadway 
in miniature. 

From Leavenworth I took railway to Topeka, fifty-eight miles. 
The road climbs ridges like saw-teeth ; jolts one like corduroys, 
and rocks him like a roudi cradle. It leads through the old Del- 
aware reservation, not long open to settlement ; but great corn- 
fields and herds of cattle already appear. The remaining mem- 
bers of this and other Kansas tribes will soon be removed to the 
Indian Territory, or some other remote region. The whites want 
their lands — and have tlie power. Thirty-three miles out we 



1866.] A POLITICAL CONVENTION AGAIN. 551 

reach the bank of the Kaw river, opposite Lawrence. Here 
North Lawrence has suddenly sprung up, with a popuhition of 
fifteen hundred, and a weekly newspaper. Here we find the 
Kansas fork of the Union Pacific railway, pushing due west to- 
ward Denver. We follow it twenty-five miles up the Kansas 
valley, then debark and cross the river. 

Topeka now contains twenty-five hundred inhabitants. At 
the chief street-crossing a tall liberty-pole is encircled by a log 
stockade, whose musket loo])-holes stare down the avenues in four 
directions. It was built after Qnantrell's wholesale massacre at 
Lawrence. Long may the flag stream above, with the rifles un- 
needed below ! Brick and stone blocks are springing up like 
rows of young corn. Thus far the vertebrte are ill-defined ; but 
the broad spinal street, whose jet-black loam is hard-baked in 
drowth and mushy in freshet, points northward, down a smooth 
prairie slope ; then across a rich bottom, rank with vegetation, to 
the sluggish Kansas. The further bank is traversed by the great 
railroad, which brings mails and passengers from New York in 
three days. A State-house of dark magnesian limestone is begun ; 
Lincoln college, under Presbyterian auspices, is in full operation ; 
and the town has a most promising future. 

Again I found a convention in session, as during my first visit. 
That was a ' Free State' assemblage, held in the open air ; this, a 
'Republican' gathering, within a hall, though upon the same spot. 
That was very bitter against James Buchanan ; tbis equally so 
against Andrew Johnson. That was directed chiefly by Lane; 
this, held soon after his death, seemed a little bewildered at the 
absence of his aggressive, controlling will. I saw that the war 
had left great gaps among the Old Guard. Some present limped 
on crutches ; some had empty sleeves and scarred faces ; but there 
were scores of familiar countenances, including several attendants, 
and candidates too, at every convention since 1856! The Kan- 
sas politician is long-lived as the cedar of Lebanon and periodic 
as fever and ague. 

This convention, after all these years of war, defeated a resolu- 
tion to strike * white ' out of the State constitution, and substi- 
tuted a recommendation submitting the sufi'rage question to a 
popular vote. Even Kansas, earliest to give the negro the mus- 



552 CURIOUS RETRIBUTIVE JUSTICE. [1866. 

ket, was reluctant to give him the ballot. Though placing within 
his grasp the first prizes of the university, she hesitated to open 
to his competition the highest honors of the State. 

In Topeka I encountered Asa Hairgrove, a survivor of the 
Marais desCygnes massacre of 1858, his face still scarred, a bullet 
still imbedded in his skull, his left hand still warped by the old 
charge of buckshot. Upon the admission of Kansas, he was 
elected State auditor. His father, William Hairgrove, had not 
3'et lived to witness the death of all the criminals (see page 123.) 
But his neighbors chose him sheriff of Linn county; and six 
years after the butchery, with a military posse, he captured one 
of the murderers in Missouri' brought him back to Kansas; wit- 
nessed his trial and conviction by a civil court; and then hung 
him in the regular course of ofllicial duty ! It was a curious ex- 
ample of retributive justice. During the war, several others of 
Hamilton's band fell fighting for the rebels. 

Abandoning the locomotive for a horse and buggy, I left the 
capital with Thaddeus H. Walker. My own estates being chiefly 
in Spain, I find the sorrow of getting but small dividends tem> 
pered by the joy of paying no taxes. Not so with my friend 
Walker. Possessing one hundi'ed and seven thousand acres in 
Kansas alone, he is probably the largest landholder in the Union. 
Six miles north of Topeka, we viewed the farm of a thousand 
acres where in 1858, before he was known to fame, or ever marched 
down to the sea, Sherman tilled the soil. A group of neigh- 
bors, discussing politics among their generous grain stacks, told us 
that unimproved lands were held at five to fifteen dollars per acre ; 
and in one rare case a farm had sold for fifty dollars per acre. 

We met a countless army of grasshoppers darkening the air 
like great flakes of snow. Our horse's feet crushed them by hun- 
dreds ; everywhere they flew up so thick that he was reluctant to 
go on. They are about an inch and-a-quarter long, and look like 
our most familiar eastern grasshopper, but with more of the clip- 
per build, and carrying more sail, The\' fly as high as one can 
fling a stone, and they can stay aloft like wild geese. What 
genius will achieve immortality by learning from them to con- 
struct a flying machine, as Sir Samuel Brown invented the sus- 
pension bridge from a spider-web across his path? 



1866.] 



OMNIVEROUS GRASSHOPPERS, 



553 



In a column one hundred and fifty miles wide and about one 
liundred deep, they mysteriously appeared near Fort Kearney, 
and were sweeping southwest. Some farmers burn the piuiries 
before them. This 
confounds the trou- 
blesome visitors ; like 
human armies, find- 
ing their supplies cut 
off, they make forced 
marches. They strip 
to skeletons shining 
Cottonwood leaves. 
They devour everj- 
shred of tomatoes and 
onions. They gorge 
themselves upon cab- 
bages, reckless of the 
great truth that cab- 
bages are indigestible. 
They roll the spring- 
ing wheat as a sweet 
morsel under their tongues. They feast upon tender leaves and 
milky kernels of softest green corn. Witnesses aver that in 
some places they eat ripe corn, cob and all! I did not hear of 
their consuming an}'^ fire-proof safes; and I am confident they 
never would have attacked the prisoners' rations at Castle Thun- 
der or Salisbury. What produces them ? Whence come they, 
and whither go ? 

We found the wild grasses six feet high, spangled with sun- 
flower, golden-rod, and other blossoms of white and blue and 
royal purple. Plants brought here from eastern States abruptly 
change in form, shape of leaves and number of petals. Probably 
this greater elevation above the sea — at some points fourteen hun- 
dred feet — is the chief cause. 

We spent the first night at Ilolton, Jackson county. The Bor- 
der Ruffians of the first bogus legislature named the counties. 
Their Free State successors changed Calhoun to Jackson, Breck- 
inridge to Linn, Wise to Chase, and were about transforming 




AMOXG THE GRASSHOrPERS. 



554: faiimi>:g by machinery. [1866. 

Douglas to Lincoln, when the Little Giant became tlieir advocate 
by opposing the Leconipton constitution. Atchison, Doniphan, 
Davis (from Jeffei'son Davis,) Marshall, Leavenworth, Coffej^, 
Woodson and Johnson, all commemorating Pro-slavery leaders, 
are still retained. 

We passed into Nemeha and Marshall, with many farms along 
the timbered creeks, but lew on the high prairies. Here, seventy 
miles from the railway, though with the locomotive approaching 
by two lines, unimproved lands were held at two to live dollars 
per acre, and farms at eight to twenty-five dollars. Settlers 
have grown rich suj)j)lying emigrants, and freighters to Colorado 
and Utah. At Ma]\sville, a large flouring mill, running night 
and day, supplies an extensive region. Until lately, Kansas 
farmers shipped their wheat to St. Louis, and bought flour 
from the same city ; but with age comes wisdom. Marysville 
was long the outpost of civilization ; now settlements extend a 
hundred miles westward. 

We passed several thrifty villages, eacli with its weekly news- 
paper ; and many excellent farms. Beside our road a threshing 
machine, run by eight horses and twelve men, was taking out of 
the straw four hundred bushels of wheat a day. Horse-rakes, 
mowers, planters, and quadruple 'stirring-plow^s' begin to abound. 
Machinery is increasing fourfold the efficiency of labor. This 
riding around the country on the spring seat of a mowxr or planter, 
is little like the old farming of New England ! The great unsup- 
plied need is the steam plow^, but that will surel}'' come. 

We got lost on blind trails; feasted on wild plums; and gained 
scorched noses and tanned cheeks. At the week's end we again 
reached Topeka, whence I continued westward. 

Lfanhattan, a busy town of one thousand people, at the junc- 
tion of Kansas and Big Blue rivers, is within a few miles of the 
geographical center of the United States. On this remote fron- 
tier, beyond forty-nine fiftieths of our present population, is the 
hub of the continent, if not of the universe. Most business 
blocks and dwellings in the vicinity are of light magnesiau lime- 
stone. The scarcity of lumber is a blessed thing for Kansas. 
It secures buildings of brick and stone, instead of log shanties and 
frame shells. 



1866.] WOMEX VOTING ON SCHOOL MATTERS. 555 

I encountered an old Boston and Colorado and Arkansas friend 
— a gentleman from everj^wbere — who had abandoned pioneering 
and soldiering for sheep-raising. He insisted that twenty thou- 
sand dollars capital and a few years of close attention to the 
business must insure an immense fortune. 

The Agricultural college, a generous stone structure of three 
stories, overlooks Manhattan and a grand sweep of surrounding 
country. Tuition is free, the State supporting the institution. 
It is munificently endowed with ninety thousand acres of richest 
land. Tlie regular course varies little from that of our older uni- 
versities, though offering a liberal option in branches. One of 
the professors showed me a section of the backbone- and verte- 
bra3 of a whale, lately found — the oldest inhabitant of Kansas yet 
heard from. 

The college, like all other educational institutions sustained by 
the State, knows no distinction of race, color, or sex. Of the one 
hundred students, more than half are girls. They take the regu- 
lar course; they will receive the regular degrees. Thus far they 
excel their masculine competitors even in composition, declama- 
tion and the higher mathematics. They have a debating club and 
learn parliamentary law. If women conduct our great chai'ities, 
they must hold public meetings; if they hold public meetings 
they must know the rules of deliberative bodies. 

Under the laws of Kansas, women of eighteen and upward ma}' 
vote on every question in district school-meetings, and are eligible 
to all offices in school-boards. In some sections they do not vote- 
in others they turn out en masse. Many, elected trustees and su- 
perintendents, serve with great zeal and practical wisdom. In sev- 
eral districts ladies have drawn plans, obtained proposals, let the 
contracts for new school-houses, and are the k-ading spn-its. 
Nowhere did I hear a single complaint against the practical work- 
ings of the law. 

All honor to 3''0ung Kansas, color-bearer in the great army of 
progress ! Is there any man who cannot see the common justice 
and common sense of giving mothers an authoritative voice in school 
matters? Beside, our civilization produces a large class of women 
to whom the traditional limits are cruelty, and the old formulas 
inapplicable. Many will alwaj'S be without husbands or home 



556 LAWRENCE; THE OLD LANDMARK. [1866. 

duties. Many will always be denied God's best gift — the gift 
of children. And many, finding their little circle of possibilities 
barren, their lives empty and aimless, from mere energy and rest- 
lessness plunge into vanities and frivolities and — worse. Tbe 
charities are blessed ; of such is the kingdom of heaven. But not 
every woman, even of the best, can find her work in teaching 
a pauper school or sewing flannel for indigent contrabands. One 
may lack the offspring of Mrs. John Eogers and the opportunity of 
Florence Nightingale, without being at heart a Lady Teazle or a 
Becky Sharp. She may be fitted for some part in the great 
aitairs and absorbing activities which make the lives of men wor- 
thy and satisfying, because purposeful and fruitful. Give her a 
chance — a fair field and no favor ! Let old paths widen and new 
avenues unlock their rusted and creaking gates. 

Next visiting Lawrence, I found the historic town — twice de- 
stroyed for its fidelity to freedom — so changed in six j^ears that I 
was a stranger in a strange land. The stone fort of 1856 yet 
looks down from Mount Oread; but the circular mud forts have 
been leveled for remorseless ' improvements,' It was a great 
mistake. Keal estate is plentiful, especially in wet weather. 
These old landmarks should have been preserved forever. I could 
recognize only three or four buildings. 

Quantrell's raid in 1863, sacked and burned the town, left 
everj^ business survivor bankrupt, and murdered one hundred 
and eighty unarmed and unresisting people. Yet the Riclnnond 
Examiner pronounced it 'justifiable and legitimate warfare,' It 
was the foulest deed of the great rebellion. One lady, whose aged 
husband had fallen to the ground, threw herself upon him and 
sought to shield him with her clothing and her encircling arms, 
when the pursuing murderer put her dress aside and blew out 
his brains. It is said that she has never smiled since that ghastly 
experience. 

Massachusetts street, inclosed by brick blocks of two, three and 
four stories, has lengthened three-fold since 1860. During rain 
the black soil is just as muddy and sticky as when the pioneers, 
sitting upon barrels and boxes in a solitary tent, first welcomed 
Governor Eeeder with the never-to-be-omitted speech-making. 

From Mount Oread, the State university, of brick, painted in 



1866.] 



r A L A ; THE BORDER COUNTIES, 



557 



awkward imitation of stone, stares fixedly down upon the pLoe- 
nix-like city and the green prairies that environ it. Lower, a 
huge windmill for grinding corn and wheat flaps its patient wings. 




LAWUEXCE KANSAS, AFIKU lilK yUAXTRELL RAID. 

Manufactories hum and clinlv among the dwellings. Lawrence 
has two daily newspapers, and a lucrative trade. 

I visited Paola, county seat of Miami, fifteen miles from the 
Missouri line. iV fort which did mount two guns survives the 
war. Thi'ough the rebellion, these people had to sleep upon their 
arms. Now and then raiders dashed in, sacked towns, robbed 
stores, jind took prisoners. Still, the border counties of Wyan- 
dotte, Johnson, Miami, Linn and Bourbon, contain one fourth the 
entire population of Kansas. Timber and water are more plenti- 
fid than in northern sections. The great salines are on the south- 
ern line. The immense coal-beds which underlie the State, and 
the deposits of marble and lead, crop out in the southeast corner, 
near Fort Scott, which already contains more than three thousand 
iidiabitantv«!, and is fourth town in the Commonwealth. In Miami, 
oil wells are being opened. The State geologist, in his survey of 

36 



558 ONE CENT PER YEAR. [1866. 

this county, found ' more than twenty places where petroleum 
flowed from rocks and soil in considerable abundance,' and 
'numerous deposits in the solid form of aspbaltum.' 

Though Miami county is yet forty miles from the locomotive, 
unimproved lands command five to twelve dollars per acre. 
In Johnson county, adjoining, they are still higher. Near Spring 
Hill, a pleasant little prairie village, I found Mr. Sprague, who 
settled on this bare prairie nine years before, living in a white 
farm-house of two stories; with one barn of stone and another of 
lumber, luxuriant hedges of Osage orange, groves of locust and 
black walnut, young orchards, broad corn and wheat fields; and 
asking ten thousand dollars for his tract of one hundred and 
sixty acres. His is a type case. In riding five miles to the 
eastward, where in 1857 was no human habitation, I saw almost 
every quarter-section fenced, with dwellings of frame or stone, 
long hedges, young shade-trees and great expanses of grain. 

A stage-coach carries the mail daily fi'om Fort Scott to Kansas 
City, one hundred and twenty miles, for one cent per year. It is 
the lowest contract in the United States. The passenger business 
is heav}^, and the proprietor means to keep off competition. By 
his line I passed through Westport Missouri, now dull and de- 
serted, but once flourishing, and handsomely built. Hence issued 
Captain Henry Clay Pate of Border Euffian memory to capture 
John Brown — and was himself taken, with all his men, by the 
old fighting saint. Pate afterward fell in the great war, leading 
a regiment of Virginia rebel cavalry. 

Kansas City grows apace ; but the dusky faces of the Santa Fe 
teamsters who first gave it life, are seen here no more forever. 
They now load their wagons at the railway terminus, two hun- 
dred miles westward. 

The narrative of Lewis and Clark, picturing the first impressions 
of this region received by white visitors, is still pleasant reading 
to one fomiliar with the country. A negro servant who accom- 
panied them was an unfailing source of wonder, and sometimes of 
terror, to the Indians. On the Missouri, an old chief told Cap- 
tain Lewis that some foolish youths of his tribe had circulated 
reports of a man who was black ; but he knew it must be a lie. 
When first confronted with the Ethiopian, the solemn brave 



1866.] 



KANSAS AS A FARMING STATE. 



559 



thought the darkey must be painted. But finding that be could 
not, with wet linger, rub the color from his cheek, he went away 
bewildered and alarmed. 

Tlie.se pioneer explorers reported that the best land along the 
great river as between the mouth of the Osage and the iin^uth of 
the Phitte. This undoubtedly embraces and borders upon the 
largest and best uubr<.>keu farming tract on the globe. Kansas has 
had only two injurious 

drowths in thirty years. i^^^^j--^^ ^^ 

With early planting 
and sowing, and deep 
plowing, she suffers no 
more from dry weather 
tiian New York or 
Massachusetts. Her 
soil is the ver}^ richest. 
'I'here is not a swamp 
in the State. Tt is diffi- 
cult to tind ten acres 
of untillable ground. 
Coal underlies almost 
every conntv. Lime- 
stone and sandstone 
make excellent build- 
ing material, and Osage orange ndmiralde fences. Cottonwood, 
black walnut and maple grow large enough for sawing in five 
3'ears from the seed. 

The average yield of corn is fi-oni forty to sixty V)ushcls to the 
acre. With the b"st machinery, one man will plant, cultivate and 
gather fifty acres in a season. The hoe is never used. Weeds 
are kept down by plowing. Wheat yields from fifteen to forty 
bushels. O.its are easily raised and produce largely. In one in- 
st nice one hundred and seven bushels of corn W'>re gathered from 
an acre; in another, ninety bushels of oats. Hay is a natural 
crop, grass growing from five to ten feet high. It may be cut 
any time betw^een the first of July and the middle of November. 
Hungarian and other cultivated gra.sses often produce three or 
four tons to the acre. The Chinese suuar-eane succeeds well. 




1 I',?/ ' 



A I'AlMfcl) JlAKKin. 



560 BEAUTIFY THE DWELLINGS. [1866. 

Stock-raising is the most lucrative pursuit. In 1866, Kansas 
sold more than a million dollars ivorth of cattle to Illinois alone. 
Illinois is fenced in. She lacks grazing capacity, but wintei'S 
the stock and then sends it to eastern markets. Grapes, cherries, 
apples, peaches, strawberries, gooseberries, currants, and blackber- 
ries thrive. As a fruit State, I think Kansas will have no equal 
in the Union, except California. 

All vines and flowers grow luxuriantly. The sun never shone 
"upon lovelier expanses. Nowhere else is Nature so kind. To 
build a road, the settler has nothing to do but drive over the 
prairie wherever he wants to go. To raise a grove, one need 
only plow the field, and trees spring up spontaneously. To open 
a farm, he simply breaks the soil and plants his corn upon the 
upturned sward. To inclose it, he puts in the Osage orange; for 
one or two seasons replants what the gophers destroy ; and in four 
years he has a fence equal to a stone wall. 

But in many sections the eye is pained by the absence of fruit 
and shade trees, and the lack of beauty in dwellings. Eesidences 
are plenty — homes few. The slovenly log houses, with jet-black 
bare soil all around them, and the stiff frame dwellings with naked 
walls and glittering white paint, all standing right beside the road 
after our detestable national fashion, have no single attractive 
feature. Beauty at first cost is as cheap as deformity, and a great 
deal more remunerative afterward. In a new country, settlers 
are poor. Meat and raiment, sheltering the head, keeping the 
wolf from the door, are first inexorable necessities. But these 
Kansas dwellings are plainer and uglier than those of Iowa, Wis- 
consin, or Minnesota. 

Set them back a hundred feet or a hundred yards from the road. 
Then, though the liome be only a cabin, have greensward not 
naked dirt about it; plant trees in front; open a flower-patch; 
throw a little stoop over the front door, or a bay-window into one 
end — any thing to break this square, drear}^, coffin-like appear- 
ance. Let rose bushes smile under the window, and creepers 
cling to the eaves, and clematis fringe and entwine the doorway. 
Make a real home, be it never so homely, and let the boys and girls 
grow up under its mellowing and refining influence. 

It seems only yesterday that Stephen A. Douglas introduced 



1866.] PEACE HATH HER VICTORIES. 561 

his bill organizing Kansas and Nebraska ; and we all began to 
ask: 

' Where are they, and what Indians inhabit them ?' 
In 1853 there were not one hundred white settlers. There was 
absolutely no property except wild land. Kansas real estate 
and personal would not have sold under the hammer for one 
million dollars. Nothing was produced except a little corn and 
beef by missionaries and Indians. 

Now, the value of property in the State, as assessed for taxation 
is fifty-five millions of dollars. And one encounters in full opera- 
tion all the institutions of commerce, society, government^ educa- 
tion and religion — school-houses on every prairie; homes dotting 
hill and valley; hamlets with neat churches, 'their taper fingers 
pointing to heaven;' great cities; generous universities; extensive 
manufiictories ; a net- work of railways; and these late lonely 
prairies teeming with the busy life of a quarter of a million of 
people. These be the victories of Peace, no less renowned than 
War. 



562 TKOM SAINT JOSEPH TO OMAHA. [1866. 



CHAPTER XLVI. 

From St. Joseph to Omaba I took the steamer Colorado. 
The little stern-wheel Ontario, which passed up the Missouri a 
week before us, loaded with railway iron, had snagged. An in- 
surance agent came up on our boat to inspect her. He must have 
been satisfied that there was no fraud ; for we found the wretched 
steamer with only one guard above water, lying half-overturned, 
and bayoneted through the heart. Workmen in skiffs were cut- 
ting her to pieces to save the iron. 

Nebraska City, fronted by a sand-bar which compels boats to 
land below, has two thousand people. Once huge blocks were 
erected, and freighting for the plains made the town a miniature 
Babel. JSTow its glory has departed, drawn to Omaha by the all- 
potent locomotive. Plattsmouth is at the mouth of the shallow 
Platte, which stretches long arms into the very heart of the 
Rocky Mountains. The stream is as broad as the Mississippi, 
and looks larsre enoucfh for tlie Great Eastern. But its actual 
depth can hardly average fourteen inches; and in dry weather it 
is barely navigable for shingles. 

A bright ruddy boy of four years, who had been playing all 
over our cabin, was suddenly smitten with cholera, and died in a 
few hours. At midnight the engines stopped, a plank was put 
out, the rude cofiSn carried on shore ; and in the deep woods, by 
flaring torches, the little fallen bud of life was given back to the 
kindly earth. The family were emigrants from Missouri to Iowa. 
After we started again, the agonizing shrieks of the poor mother 
disturbed every sleeper on board, though she had five other 
children with her — five other little mouths which her life slaves 
itself to fill. ' human nature, human nature V 



1866.] A BEAUTIFUL TOWN-SITE. 563 

Shallows and sand-banks forced us to land a mile below Omaha, 
The young city will have to compress the river by narrowing the 
banks, as St. Louis did the Mississippi. Omaha is not on the 
water's ed^-e like Leavenworth and other Kansas towns ; but 




\:S%v S«»''i'5gr_^ 



A PAUT OF OMAHA, IN 1867. 

leads a sprawling existence back on a level and hill-side, with a 
broad strip of lowland intervening. Its area is immense ; hori- 
zontally it is a great city. 

From the boat I could not detect one feature of beauty, save the 
white capitol on a symmetric hill a mile away. But riding up to 
the summit, and looking back down upon the young metropolis, 
I saw the fairest town-site on the Missouri. This bird's-eye view 



56i STREET SCENES IN OMAHA. [1866. 

takes in many shaded and beautiful dwellings upon neighborina 
bills ; frame warehouses and brick blocks springing up like mush- 
rooms ; a level floor of prairie and corn-field which stretches for 
six miles up to Florence ; broad, smooth, generous avenues point- 
ing from the State-house down to the Missouri ; the river itself ; and 
beyond it, rich Iowa prairies extending back four miles to Council 
Bluffs. When Lewis and Clark penetrated this solitude, they 
found these bold hills upon the eastern bank the common confer- 
ence ground of many tribes, and named them 'the Council Bluffs.' 

That was but sixty years ago ; yet this region was less known 
than Siberia. Now, in its early future, will rise a great city, heart 
of a dense population, on the grand highway of travel and traffic 
for the whole globe. And sixty years hence— what imagination 
so rich and wild as to paint that picture? The center of an em- 
pire stretching from north pole to equator; with Qvcry climate, 
every product, every industry; with more than a hundred mil- 
lions of people, embodying democracy, illustrating Cliristianity ; 
giving to each child, though the offspring of ignorance, poverty 
and vice, a fair start in the race of life, freedom from every bur- 
den, and the rich endowment of education and opportunity — 
recognizing in every man and woman, even those we name out- 
cast and criminal, bi'others and sisters of one great famil}', whom 
the same loving Father made, and the same Teacher died to re- 
deem. That were a destiny worth the having! 

From 1857 to 1864 Omaha had a hard struggle. But the great 
Pacific railroad infused wonderful vigor; and I found the little 
capital of Nebraska the liveliest city in the United States. Tlie 
railway company had erected an immense brick car-house, engine- 
house, and machine shops ; and five or six hundred buildings had 
gone up during the summer. One brick block cost a hundred 
thousand dollars. Streets were being graded, sidewalks thronged 
with returned gold-seekers, discharged soldiers, farmers scllingj^ro- 
duce, speculators, Indians, and other strange characters of border 
life. The population was eight thousand. Single grocery houses 
were doing a business of half a million dollars per year ; and 
the pioneer merchants and bankers had accumulated fo]-tunes. 
The railroad disbursed a quarter of a million dollars per month. 
Business lots commanded from two to five thousand dollars. 



1866.] AN ORIGINAL AMERICAN. 565 

Here was George Francis Train, at the head of a great com- 
pany called the Credit Foncier, organized for dealing in lands 
and stocks — for building cities along the railway from the Mis- 
souri to Salt Lake, This corporation had been clothed by the 
Nebraska legislature with nearly every power imaginable, save 
that of reconstructing the late rebel States. It was erecting neat 
cottages in Omaha and at other points west. 

Mr. Train owned personally about five hundred acres in Omaha, 
which cost him only one hundred and seventy-five dollars per 
acre — a most promising investment. He is a noticeable, ori- 
ginal American, who has crowded wonderful and varied ex- 
periences into his short life. An orphan boy employed to sweep 
the counting-room, he rose to the head of a great Boston shipping 
house; then established a branch in Liverpool; next organized 
and conducted a heavy commission business in Australia, and 
astonished his neighbors in that era of ftibulous prices, with Brus- 
sels carpets and marble counters and a free champagne luncheon 
daily in his business office. Afterward he made the circuit of the 
world, wrote books of travel, fought British prejudice against street 
railways, occupying his leisure by fiery and audacious American 
war speeches to our island cousins, until he spent a fortune, and 
enjoj^ed the delights of a month in a British prison. 

Thence he returned to America ; lectured everywhere ; and 
now he is trying to build a belt of cities across the continent. 
At least a magnificent project. Curiously combining keen sa- 
gacity with wild enthusiasm, a man who might have built the 
pyramids, or been confined in a straight jacket for eccentricities, 
according to the age he lived in, he observes dryly that since 
he began to make money, people no longer pronounce him crazy! 
He says Chicago and San Francisco have more 'men of brains^ 
than any other cities in the world — ' men who would know what 
to do in an earthquake, a fire, or a shipwreck' — a definition of 
brains worthy of Fosco. He drinks no spirits, uses no tobacco, 
talks on the stump like an embodied Niagara, composes songs 
to order by the hour as fast as he can sing them, like an Italian 
improvisatore, remembers every droll story from Joe Miller to 
Artemus AYard, is a born actor, is intensely in earnest, and has 
the most absolute and outspoken faith in himself and his future. 



566 



OUT ON THE PACIFIC RAILROAD. 



[1866. 




GEORGE FRANCIS TRAIN. 



With the Government commissioners, who were present to 
accept a new twenty-miles of the line, I went out to the end of 
the Pacific raih^oad — then two hundred and forty miles west of 
Omaha. Making a short elbow to the south, at ten miles 
out the railway turns westward along the Platte valley. The 

embankments for the iron are 
seldom more than three or 
four feet high ; and for a tan- 
gent of forty miles the road 
is as straight as the track of 
a rifle-ball. That is a good 
place for studying perspective. 
Eastern Nebraska is a capital 
farming country, though more 
sandy, and less rich than 
Kansas. 

A hundred miles out, we 
])assed Columbus, on the prai- 
ries. It promises to be a future railway focus. Mr, Train and his 
associates believe that it will be a great city, capital of Nebraska, 
and perh.'ips of the United States. Stranger things have hap- 
pened. Two hundred miles out, at Kearney station, we spent 
the niglit in our passenger car, improvising beds, with boards, 
cushions and blankets, upon the backs of the seats. Having 
traveled to Fort Kearney seven times by wagon and coach, I 
found accomplishing it by rail in a few hours decidedly agreeable. 
The next morning we started on. A few buff;iloes had been 
killed here lately; and now we saw hundreds of antelopes from 
our train. Some came within two hundred yards, curious to scru- 
tinize the iron monster screeching into their vast domain. 
While in motion we aimed hundreds of rifle-shots at them from 
the car windows. A single one, from General Merrill, took effect, 
and sent its beautiful victim limping into the sand-hills. 

At the end of the track, on the smooth, well-built road, we 
found long sleeping and eating-cars for the workmen, who press 
forward so fast that only portable dwellings will serve them. All 
supplies come from the east. The sleepers are brought down the 
Missouri, from Iowa forests. About half are soft cottonwood; 



1866.J TWO AND- A- HALF MILES PER DAY. 567 

but Burnetiziug (infusing with zinc) is said to render them as du- 
rable as oak. ^lany of the timbers for bridges are of bhick wal- 
nut, often sixteen inches square. There are but two long bi'idges 
east of the Eocky Mountains — one of lifteen hundred feet across 
Loupe Fork ; another of half-a-mile over the North Platte. 

The charter permits only American iron. The rails are from 
Pennsylvania and New York. We found the workmen, with the 
regularity of machinery, dropphig each rail in its place, spiking 
it down, and then seizing another. Behind them, the locomotive ; 
before, the tie-layers ; beyond these the graders ; and still further, 
in mountain recesses, the engineers. It was Civilization pressing 
westward — the Conquest of Nature moving toward the Pacific. 

Thomas C. Durant, vice-president and sole contractor of the 
road, has furnished the energy and most of the brains for carrying 
out this stupendous national enterprise. He has pushed the line 
westward with a rapidity never before equaled. It used to be 
thought a great feat to lay one mile of track per day; but here 
two miles and even two and-a-half have been laid daily for weeks. 
The head-quarters of the company are in New York. There Mr. 
Durant from his quiet office, directs by telegraph tlie labors of 
twelve thousand men — an army which it requires generalship 
to handle, particularly when its commander must be paymaster 
as well. 

The Platte valley, from six to twenty miles wide, is incompara- 
bly the most favorable railway route in the world — almost a dead 
level from the Missouri up to the mountains. For five hundred 
miles the grade averages only seven feet to the mile. 

When the range is reached, rolling mills will be erected 
for making rails, iron dug from the hills, and tics cut from the 
forests. Though the highest summit-crossing contemplated is 
more than eight thousand feet above sea-level, it is believed that 
no heavier grade than eighty feet to the mile will be required. 

The company design building a branch to Denver. Their 
main line passes nearly one hundred miles north of that city. 
The chief Kansas fork, from Wyandotte up the Kaw and Smoky 
Hill, will join the main stem near Denver. It will probably make 
that connection about as soon as the California and Nebraska 
companies unite at Salt Lake. Of the two smaller Kansas forks 



568 



THE THREE KANSAS FORKS. 



[1866. 



the nortliern, from St. Joseph "westward, will unite with the Platte 
valley line; and the southern, from Atchison, with the Smoky 
Hill. The Wyandotte and Atchison forks receive the same Con- 
gressional endowment as the Nebraska Union Pacific and the 
California Central Pacific — twelve hundred and eight}^ acres of 
land and sixteen thousand dollars in Government bonds for each 




THOMAS C. DURANT. BUILDER OF UNION PACIFIC EAILROAD. 

mile completed. Passing no hilly regions, they do not obtain the 
higher subsidies. 

The uniform width established upon the trunk line and all its 
branches is four feet eight and-a-half inches. That corresponds 
with most eastern roads, and will give an unbroken gauge from 
San Francisco to New York, via Omaha and Chicago. 

When the California builders have passed down the eastern side 



1860.] TWENTY-FIVE THOUSAND MEN EMPLOYED. 569 

of the Sierras to find smooth sailing, tlie road from Omaha will 
strike the Eock}' Mountains and hard work. But ample prepara- 
tion is made for it. The summer of 1867 opens with twenty -five 
thousand men employed on the main stem of the Paeific Kaihvay; 
and the California and Nebraska companies expect their locojaolives 
to meet in the vicinity of jSalt Lake early in 1870. Speed the day I 

DISTANCES. 

New York to Chicago, 979 miles. 

Chicago to Omaha, 500 miles. 

Omaha to Salt Lake Citjv l,0;j j milea. 

Salt Lake to Sacramento, 620 miles. 

Sacramento to San Francisco, 80 miles. 



New York to San Francisco, 3,219 milea. 

HIGIIT& ABOVE SEA LEVEL. 

Omaha, 1,000 feet. 

Crossing of North Platte, 2,790 feet. 

Eastern base Rocky Mountains, 4,534 feet. 

Highest summit-crossing Rocky Mountains, 8,230 feet 

Salt Lake Cit.v, 4,286 feet. 

Suumiit-crossing of Sierras, 7,042 feet. 

Sacramento, (on lide-water,) 00 feet. 

Along the Platte are the old hunting-grounds of the Pawnee 
Loupes, whose horrible sacrifices of prisoners captured in war, to 
Venus their great star, are described by Lewis and Clark, The 
story of these old chroniclers, who saw the early and real 
romance of the continent, tempts me to borrow from it once more. 
Up the river, within the present limits of Dacotah,* they found 
ferocious brown bears, killing one whose foot measured eleven 
by seven and-a-half inches, exclusive of the claws. After a little 
experience in hunting them, Captain Lewis recorded in his journal : 
' We had rather encounter two Indians than one brown bear !' A 
few days later, several soldiers wounded one of the brutes, when 
he suddenly turned upon them, undismayed by the pelting 
bullets. One ball broke his shoulder, but retarded him only for 
a moment. Giving the hunters no time to reload, he compelled 
them to throw away their guns, drove them pell-mell down a per- 
pendicular bank of twenty feet into the river; and sprang after 

* Original name of the Sioux nations, and signifying: ' Leagued' or 'allied.' 



570 AN EXPERIENCE OF LEWIS AND CLARK. [1866. 

them. He had almost overtaken the hindmost, when a fatal bul- 
let was lodged in his head. That was at least more exciting than 
the hunting of these days. 

After I returned to Omaha, Destiny confronted me for three 
weeks in the form of malarial fever, with a daily six-hour par- 
oxysm of neuralgia in the eye instead of the chill wliich ought 
to have accompanied it by all physiological proprieties. A pro- 
tracted diet in darkened rooms, upon all the drowsy sirups of 




BEAR HUNTING SIXTY YEARS AGO. 



the East, taught me that the confessions of an opium-cater are 
more agreeable than his experiences. 

The Herndon House, where I lodged, was a seat of war. The 
landlord's lease had expired, and the proprietor was trying to 
eject him. There was livel}'" skirmishing all along the line. By 
night the owner would fling out the furniture and move in the 
effects of the new lessee. The next morning, host would put out 
this furniture and return his own. There w*as an incessant explo- 
sion of epithets and display of revolvers. The novelty (for a sick 
man) soon wore off; and I retreated to Council Bluffs, on the Iowa 



1866.] A TRIP ACROSS IOWA. 571 

bank. Several railways will center here, and the town has a 
healthy trade. Growing trees shade its streets; and graceful 
homes nestle in little glens of the high bluff which walls it in on 
the east. 

The Mormons lived in this county before they went to Salt 
Lake. Half the present population is composed of Saints, most 
of them fallen fi'oin grace and exclleiit citiz.'ns. Brigham's fol- 
lowers displayed here the same qualities they do in Utah — fi-u- 
gality, industry', temperance, hospitality, peacefulness when not 
exasperated, and assassination for outsiders who interfered with 
polygani}', or otherwise excited special animosit3^ 

From Council Bluffs I came across Iowa.* The first sixty 
miles was by stage, as a gap in the railway was unfilled. 

In the East, railroads are built for the toMnis ; on the border 
they build the towns. Upon this Iowa line, locating the depots 
was left to two persons. They manifested an avarice for dona- 
tions of lands and lots to themselves, unusual even in this longi- 
tude. If the owners of any village refused to comply, they could 
run the cars by, establish a station on the bare praii'ies beyond, and 
kill the town by establishing a new one. The chief owner of one 
flourishing hamlet assured me that he spent nineteen thousand 
dollars in buying every tract of land along the line for several 
miles, where by any j)ossibility they could make a station and start 
a rival settlement. Then he gave them a liberal number of lots. 
So his town is a railroad point and he puts money in his purse. 

He ought to succeed. Years ago he settled on the prairie bevond 
civilization, buying thirty thousand acres of wild land. "When 
there were a hundred settlers and the countv was organized 
bids began to come in for the shire town, ns that would make 
an important point wherever established. He offtTed to give 
the county forty acres in his prospective village, to build a brick 
court-house from his private means, and also a school-house, 
hotel and store. Rivals hid their diminished heads ; and his town 
became the county seat. 

Iowa, well watered, well timbered, rich in soil, though colder 
tlian Kansas and less adapted to fruit, has already three-quarters 

* ' The drowsy ' or ' the sleepy ones .' Name of a branch of Sioux Indians. 



572 AROUND THE WORLD BY RAILWAY. [1866. 

of a million of people and an incalculable future. Sbe lias no me- 
tropolis ; all her prophetic cities on the Mississippi missed their 
destiny, and the interior capital, Des Moines, bids fair to be her 
leading town. 

At midnight the train-boj awoke me with the information : 

' We are crossing the Mississippi.' 

Eising drowsily upon one elbow, I looked down from my 
window at the great river, as our train glided slowly over it. 
Ours is the era of bridges. The highest courts have practically 
decided that the steamboat is- subordinate to the locomotive ; that 
railway-travel must be unimpeded, though at some expense to 
navigation. Soon we shall ride from New York to San Fran- 
cisco in one week, without change of cars. Around the world by 
railway, with two ocean ferries ! 

Upon these closing lines my pen lingers, and I listen for the 
voice of the future brakeman. Day after day, on the continental 
journey, be opens his door and shouts to sleepy passengers : 

' Chicago. Change cars for New Orleans and Lake Superior.' 

' Missouri Eiver. Change cars for Saskatchewan, Leavenworth, 
and Galveston,' 

'Eockv Mountains. Change cars for Santa Fe,. El Paso, Mata- 
moras, and the City of Mexico,'" 

' Salt Lake — twenty minutes for dinner. Change cars for Fort 
Benton, British Columbia, Pah Eanagat, Panama, Lima, and Val- 
paraiso.'' 

'Virginia Nevada. Change cars for Owyhee, Columbia Eiver, 
Puget Sound, Sitka, and Kamschatka.'' 

'San Francisco. Passengers for New Zealand, Honolulu, Meb 
bourne, Yokahama, Hong Kong, and all other points in Asia, 
Africa, and Europe will keep their seats till landed on the wharf 
of the daily line of the Pacific Mail Steamship Company. Bag- 
gage checked through to Peking, Calcutta, Grand Cairo, Constanti- 
nople, St. Petersburg, Paris, and Liverpool !' 






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